Not To Pass On
by LilyCullen1121
Summary: After 9/11, the CIA began recruiting agents who were much younger than the norm. One of these agents was Isabella Swan, who, shortly after her seventeenth birthday, was transferred to Seattle, where she met a boy with deep eyes and a dark worldview.
1. Chapter 1

**Hi, all. This is my first time publishing on , and I played with canon a little in this story. It's very important that you know that Alice and Jasper are not vampires. They are human, and they are Bella's age. I really appreciate your reviews and your time - I hope you enjoy!**

**One**

_This is not a story to pass on._

_We rely on secrecy. We have existed in the shadows for so long, yet no one knows about us. Those few people – the members of the world's general population, the blessed, safe, blind multitude – who do find out… well, they are dealt with. But even with these few minor slips, we are still one of the best-kept secrets the world has ever seen. Or hasn't seen._

_I haven't met all of the others, the ones who are in essence my lifeline. It doesn't work like that – it's safer for us this way. But there are a few whom I have been with long enough and often enough that I can commit my life to their protection even without the double necessity of who we are and what we do. I guess you could call us a family, though we are not related in any biological sense. In fact, if the world were as it should be, we never would have even met. We do not interact outside of our own world. When we are in that other world, the real world, we avert our eyes for our own safety and for the safety of the others who are like us. But, as it is, we know each other in ways that we don't know our other friends. And those other friends – they don't know us. Not at all._

_However, that is the way the world is, and this story did happen, although so many people would much rather it hadn't. God knows, my own life would have been easier if it hadn't. But the thing about being part of one of the world's oldest conspiracies – it makes you very aware of the secrets of others. Those other secrets draw you in, whisper to you, and you have to know more about those who carry them._

_I had to know more._

_I have nearly been killed more times than I can count. I have watched people I love die more times than I care to remember. And I have killed people. I comfort myself with the thought that none of them were innocents. I killed them because they threatened my way of life, the way of life of my people. I killed them because I was ordered to do so. I can't afford to trouble myself with thoughts of whether or not their deaths were right. They were necessary. You would think I would have learned by now that it is far better to become attached to no one and nothing. The world is just too fragile for love._

_This is not a story to pass on._

_I never intended on sharing my secret, because it is not just my secret. The lives of so many others depend on that secrecy. But I had to sacrifice that secrecy for the only person I have ever fallen in love with. Strange, isn't it… but anyway._

_Another thing about being part of a conspiracy – you become blisteringly aware of the fact that, however bad your own secret is, there exists someone somewhere with a more dangerous secret. But I happened to forget that until it became part of my reality. I should have known – while I may be special, I am not charmed. Something had to give, sooner or later._

_Now, as I race through this thick forest, dodging patches of sunlight, taking care to ruffle no leaf, the controlled breathing of my family all around me as they keep pace with me, I know that I have to make it to that clearing ahead, the clearing where the light changes from green to yellow. My heart is there. My heart is there, and I am one of the only people who can save it. I have to save it. I can't live without it. A crucial part of my existence is knowing my own limits, and I know that much for damn sure._

_This is not a story to pass on._

**Bella**

"Mom." I strode into the kitchen of our small, cozy house in Phoenix and dropped my schoolbag on the table where she sat, grading the worksheets from her kindergarten class.

"Yes, sweetheart?" When she looked up at me, there was anxiety in her eyes. It was no surprise, really, that expression – she was used to me speaking to her in that tone, and following it with another flat statement: "I have to fly out, right now." But not this time. At least, not quite.

I lowered myself into a chair across from her. I had always loved the intricate carvings in this wood chair, and the others that surrounded our dining room table, but always hated the huge squishy cushions my mother had placed on the seats. They slid around on the finish of the wood, and I always felt like I had to hold myself extra-stiff just to not slip off. Folding my hands on the table in front of me, I cleared my throat. "They want to reassign me."

Slowly, my mother lowered her purple pen, and I hated the hope that sprang up in her eyes. "Clerical duty? Oh, Bella, how wonderful!"

I shook my head, lowering my eyes to my hands. "No." Deep breath. "Mom, you know how there's not only me, but four others in Arizona," I began, slowly.

She shook her head. "I thought it was only two at your school." She didn't know the names of Katie, José, Violet, and Nathaniel. It was a violation of the code. But I was able to tell her how many others there were around me.

"The other two are in Flagstaff. Anyway, powers that be decided that one of us could be spared." My teeth descended onto my lower lip as I steeled myself to hurt her. "One of ours… she was stationed in Seattle. She died last week. In the field. They brought her body back, so the kill was confirmed." I closed my eyes, again, on the picture it wanted to show me: Irina, a girl no older than me, with a bullet hole between her eyes, her white-blonde hair in her face.

My mother pressed her hands to her mouth. She hates that more than anything, when I have to come home and tell her that one of my friends was killed by the shadowy enemies we chase all over the world so that we can prevent them from coming here. Every time, it could be me. Every time.

"The point is," I pressed on before she could interrupt, "is that now there's only two agents in Washington State. Fontana wants me to move up there to round the number out to three. That would leave four here, and that's enough of a balance. I was picked because Dad lives up there, and I can leave without raising too much suspicion. It's the best option."

Now I had to sit there, helpless, as her eyes welled with tears. Unable to bear her pain as the implications of my words sank in, I turned and stared out the window into our backyard. There wasn't any grass out there, just a covered patio surrounded by a sand garden. But the yard backed up onto a golf course, and the contrast between the beige of the sand and the lush green of the overtended grass was always shocking.

My mother gulped once, twice, shuddering. When she spoke, her voice was hoarse, attempting anger to keep the pain at bay. "And what do they expect you to do? Just up and change schools? Go to your father when he might not even be able to afford–"

"I already talked to Dad," I cut her off. "I got the text message at about ten this morning, and I called him during lunch. He's already said he can take me." Swallowing my own tears – I had seen worse than this, given worse news than this, and survived – I stood and retrieved my bag. "I have until the end of the week to enroll in school up there." Hesitating, glanced back at her, at the tears streaking down her young face, wetting a curl of blonde hair that had drifted over her collarbone. "Mom, please. Please don't make this any harder than it has to be. You know I don't want to do this."

She shoved away from the table, lurching to her feet. "Then tell them _no_!"

"You know I can't."

And with that, I turned my back on her, padded down the hall to my bedroom, and shut the door quietly.

When I was alone in my room, I stared around at the walls. What few photographs there were of me and my friends were always group shots in places with generic backgrounds – the inside of somebody's house with nothing to identify the exact location; the beach at Lake Havasu; a camping trip from a few years ago. No names, no titles. My walls were white, and I had no athletic trophies, no academic honors certificates, no framed team photographs.

In the frame of the mirror was one photograph of me and my dad taken when I was thirteen, and across from it was one of me and my mother taken a few years later. Beyond those photographs, my reflection stared back at me: young, pale, average height, dark brown eyes that almost exactly matched my long hair, which was at the moment bunched up in an elastic at the back of my head. Jeans, plain black T-shirt. You had to look hard to see the extra definition in my muscles, and I had gotten quite good at using concealer on my scars. I had nothing to indicate that I was a standout student, because I was not. I couldn't be.

Shortly after the United States joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949, President Truman authorized the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency, a spy network with jurisdiction all over the globe. The CIA was a product of momentary panic over the Soviet Union's detonation of their first atomic bomb, but the widespread fear of Communist power had convinced Congress that the agency was necessary. And so, for the past sixty or seventy years, the world, both foreign and domestic, has been crawling with agents who answer only to their own director, who answers only to the President, dedicated to exterminating even the ghost of any threat to the country before they can arrive on our shores.

The above background information can be found in just about any textbook of United States history published between 1955 and now. But the part that no one tells you is that President Kennedy had a problem with Truman's CIA. How could the agents go undercover, Kennedy asked, if they were all white men in their thirties? So, by executive order, one of the quietest yet most widespread campaigns spread its tentacles across the country. Latinos, Asians, African Americans, and most especially Eastern Europeans were recruited for agents and, years before the public was made aware of it, women were as well. What Kennedy knew, what any man could tell you, is that it's much easier for a woman to make a man give up his secrets than it would be for another man.

But one thing that the public has yet to be made aware of: Kennedy also authorized the CIA to recruit children.

Oh, not babies. As the father of small children himself, Kennedy would never allow that. But, starting in 1961, the agency started monitoring, through the public school systems, the progress of students who fit the profiles they had devised: more intelligent than their peers, physically stronger, emotionally mature, preferably products of broken homes, only children, quiet. Only the very best of this pool were selected by the recruiters, and as soon as they all turned thirteen, their parents were approached with the agency's offer. In exchange for sixty thousand dollars a year (held in trust until the children came of age), the parents would allow their children to be taken to an intensive training camp in Langley, Virginia, for two and a half months in the summer, two weeks in winter, and two weeks in spring to begin to learn how to become CIA operatives. The camps were scheduled deliberately to coincide as much as possible with school breaks. In time, this camp would earn the unofficial nickname of the Cradle.

While at the Cradle, the children were to learn the history of espionage; the art of undercover work; how to track, evade, and capture enemies; and how to gather information. In addition, their bodies were transformed into weapons. Endurance runs, strength building, and cardio training were all part of the daily regimen. When the children turned fourteen, they also flew out to Langley one weekend a month for additional training; when they were fifteen, it became two weekends a month. The summer that they were sixteen, they were given their first field operations, working alongside adult members of the agency, but only during their summer breaks from school.

All operatives are guaranteed acceptance at either the University of Virginia, Georgetown University, or the military academy at Annapolis upon graduation from high school, so that they can be within easy distance of Langley and continue their training. As soon as they graduate college, they instantly move to the Farm, the regular CIA training camp, for a special, accelerated program, and emerge as superior agents already prepared for the more intensive work of the agency.

The system worked, and it may have continued that way indefinitely. But that all changed one sunny morning in September 2001, when four planes and several thousand lives were destroyed all along the eastern seaboard of the United States. Suddenly, the former world had passed away, and all the old rules no longer applied. Underage operatives could no longer be saved for jobs during the summertime; as they were needed, they were pulled out of class and their parents were instructed to plead illness or indisposition to the attendance offices. The winter training camp was extended from two weeks to three. Recruitment began at eleven years old, instead of thirteen, and all the theoretical education was imparted during those first two extra years. The children were made ready earlier, and they were used more often. This was the world I entered when I was in the sixth grade.

I am Isabella Marie Swan, Operative ID 11679543-C3, seventeen years old, and I am one of fewer than three hundred underage CIA operatives-in-training in the United States. I have been to Iran, Pakistan, and Cambodia on undercover operations. I have been to Egypt, China, and Honduras on black ops. I speak seven languages fluently and learned to fire a handgun before I had my braces off. My covers have, in the past, included a belly dancer, a real estate magnate's beloved daughter, and a drug lord's housemaid. But that's not what the rest of the world – my classmates, my friends, my extended family sees when they look at me. To them, I'm just Bella, a quiet B-student, one who isn't sure what she wants to do with her life, has no interest in boys, and very little in life beyond high school.

Even though the CIA chose us because we are extraordinary, all recruits are instructed to be as ordinary as possible. We can't have leadership positions in any clubs, we can't raise our GPA's above 3.2, and we can't form any close relationships with our peers. We have to become the kids nobody sees, so that when we miss class for two days or two weeks, nobody comments.

While it is unquestionably an honor to be chosen by the world's best spy network, we all do pay a price. We have no real adolescence; we can't be fully honest with anyone other than our fellow operatives. And, as proven by Irina's death, our lives are lived on a knife edge.

I flopped backwards on my bed, squeezing my eyes shut against the needles pricking at the backs of them as a memory of her face, her laugh, swam to the front of my mind. I would never know how she died. All operatives-in-training had only Level Four clearance, and you needed to be at least Level Six to see another agent's operation report. The only people who would know what had happened to her were the agents who had shared the op and those to whom they had made their report. But I still knew that there would be an informal memorial service for her at the next training weekend, organized by the twenty-two-year-olds in their last year of training before they went to the Farm.

I sighed and dragged myself upright, deciding not to delay the inevitable. By now, both of the operatives in Seattle would have already been informed of my approach, and unofficial practice amongst underage transfers was to call and introduce ourselves – carefully, of course. We knew better than to say anything dangerous. I extracted my secure phone (paid for by the CIA; your tax dollars at work) from my pocket and dialed the number given to me when I'd received news of my transfer earlier today. As the dial tone buzzed in my ear, I gazed out my window. It was still autumn, not that the light looked any different in Phoenix because of the time of year. But, since it was almost five in the afternoon, the setting sun had cast the grass of the golf course with an orange tint. I pulled my oldest, favorite teddy bear into the crook of my free arm and waited.

The phone rang only twice before there was a click and a bright, perky voice chirped, "Hello?"

"Hi." I cleared my throat. "The color of the day is aquamarine."

There was a pause, and when the girl spoke again, her tone was more serious. "And yesterday's was teal."

I relaxed, sighing. "Yes. Um, my name's Bella. I'm going to be moving to Seattle next week. I think I'll be going to your school."

"Oh, really? Cool!" The sparkle was back now, and I knew that she'd been worried that my call was to assign her a new op. "Yeah, that'll be great. Oh, you don't know my name, do you? It's Alice."

I nodded, knowing that she shouldn't give me her last name over the phone. "It's nice to get to talk to you," I told her, sincerely. She sounded like a nice person. "Does anybody else I might know go to your school?"

"I'm not sure if you'd know Jasper," she replied, "but he's cool. We've studied together before."

"You have?" I asked, understanding that she was telling me that she and this Jasper had been on at least one op before. "Does he do good work?"

"Yeah. Hide-and-seek is his favorite game, which is good, because drama is my best subject."

So, she was best with undercover work, while Jasper was a pavement artist – the person who is best at tracking people, because he's the best at not being seen. "Oh, I don't know if we have that much in common, then," I said slowly, pushing my hair back from my face. "I'm only really good at making shadow puppets."

She was silent as she digested the fact that my specialty was black ops. I waited, a little nervous. Black op agents were generally considered the most dangerous, because we were the ones who usually did the capturing, the interrogating… we were usually the ones who killed.

Finally, Alice cleared her throat. "We should all be able to learn from each other, then," she said quietly, the closest she'd come to breaking the cover.

"We should. I'm glad." I held my breath a moment, then continued. "Listen… I'm sorry. You must miss her."

Alice's silence was longer this time. "I do." She coughed once, and I figured we should probably end the conversation. It was unlikely someone was trying to listen in, but we had to be careful.

"Yeah. So I'll see you soon, okay?"

"Of course." There it was again, the cheerful tone. "I'm glad you called, Bella."

"Thanks." And we hung up.

I stared at my phone for another moment, waiting for the screen to go dark, before I carefully placed it on the matters next to me. Then I stood, wandering over to my window, watching the last of the sunset disappear beyond the golf green. The golden light had disappeared and my room was wreathed in shadow before I turned and mechanically pulled a bag out of my closet. Carefully, I started loading every trace of my life in Phoenix into that bag, and then into others. I had to pack, and I had to go. The personal reaction could come later.

**Edward**

The bell rang, ending my English class, and I was glad. Studying Shelley's _Frankenstein_ and hearing the teacher – an overly blonde woman younger than my mother had been when she was changed – describe it as one of the most complex works we would ever read was vaguely insulting to someone who had once written a graduate thesis comparing the works of Ayn Rand to those of James Joyce. I slid one strap of my backpack, full of useless information, over my shoulder, taking care not to be the first one out of the classroom. I spoke to no one, and I tried not to hear the rush of adolescent babble that swelled and flowed around me. At least it was not the rush it would have been had it been nighttime. But, seeing as to how the sun was shining, I could pretend that I was one of them.

Legend says that my kind cannot come out in the sunlight, lest we be turned to ash. We do not contest this; it is an idea that helps us hide. But the truth is only that the sunlight weakens us – horribly. My supernatural strength, my blinding speed, my perfect sight, my excellent hearing, my impenetrable skin… these only manifested in the moonlight. During the day, I was reduced to the rank of a mere mortal. My skin became just that: skin. Flesh. Oh, my heart did not beat, but I returned to only mortal strength.

And I still thirsted. Always, I thirsted.

"God, I am _so_ thirsty," moaned a little freshman girl to her friend from where they stood behind me in the lunch line. I snorted to myself without turning around, paid for a tray of food without caring what I'd bought, and turned away from the counter stacked with the human food that sat reeking beneath the heat lamps. As I picked my way through the mess of tables and books and bags and people, nobody glanced up at me. The cautious, limited familiarity of the last two years meant that I no longer frightened them. At least, not from a distance.

My brother and sister and I always shared the same small table, tucked into the corner of the second-floor cafeteria. It was situated by one of the large floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the eastern wall of the building, and the clouds that roiled above the parking lot or the seagulls that scavenged among the cars below for scraps were often more interesting than the petty human dramas that circulated the large, linoleum-coated room. For the last few weeks – it was now the Thursday of the third week of this school year – the buzz had been nervous and excited as the humans settled into another chapter of their little lives. For Rosalie and Emmett and me, it didn't matter nearly as much. I wasn't even sure how many times I had gone through the junior year of high school by now. Enough that I had not found anything about it to interest me for decades, anyway.

The anxiety usually faded by this point in the month, but the atmosphere had been disrupted – by a late arrival. Just another girl – what was her name, Bella? She'd hardly spoken to anyone, but when she did, she was pleasant. Hardly anyone knew where she came from, and nobody knew why she'd suddenly moved in with her father and his wife two weeks into the semester. Of course, because of this air of mystery, everyone wanted to know everything about her.

It wasn't as though this rather large public high school not too far from Seattle's Capitol Hill was an insular community. Far from it. Students transferred in and out all the time – my siblings and me, for example. It was just that, with the exception of me and my siblings, and now this girl, the newcomers always quickly sought their own niche. Humans, adolescent humans especially, hated to be left out of anything. The flurried whispers that followed her down the hallways and surrounded her in class were exhaustingly similar to those that had traced Emmett, Rosalie, and myself two years ago. We hadn't tried to find friends either, but our case was different. We had each other.

But I respected the new girl's want for privacy. Who could understand the necessity of privacy better than I?

Not that any secret she had could be anywhere near as sensitive as mine. All the same, I wished for her sake as much as my own that the rest of the humans' obsessive interest in her would subside.

I set my lunch tray down on the table across from where Rose and Emmett sat side by side, speaking in low whispers. Emmett looked up when I sat at the table. "Football at the rainier field tonight. You in?"

I shook my head and replied, "The teams are even without me."

He snorted. "You know Esme won't play. C'mon – you and Carlisle against me and Rose."

"We should hunt," I murmured, my eyes on the greasy mess that the humans called pizza in front of me. "It's been almost two weeks."

"Fine," sighed Rosalie. "Hunt first, then the game. We've been cooped up all week, Edward. I'm tired of it."

I bit back my retort and turned to face out the window. The light rain that had started falling around three in the morning had let up a few minutes ago, but the clouds showed no signs of clearing. Just as well – our strength was still diluted by the UV rays of daytime, but at least our eyes wouldn't be hurt by the light.

Absently, my eyes traced an empty candy bar wrapper that skittered across the asphalt of the parking lot in the light wind. It bounced over speed bumps and loose pebbles, eventually crossing in front of the school's main door, which opened. Mildly interested, I leaned forward and watched the new girl emerge, her eyes darting back and forth, before she stepped out onto the stairs and, wrapping her arms tightly around herself, began to stride briskly across the student lot.

She looked neither left nor right as she walked, her long brown hair gently rippling out behind her, but she was not heading towards the nondescript black compact I'd seen her drive onto campus once before. Instead, she seemed to be aiming for the back of the lot, where a low cinderblock wall separated the school's property from the city. As she approached, a tall blond boy – Jasper Whitlock – got out of the driver's side of a tan Camry, and a little black-haired girl named Alice Brandon emerged from the passenger's side.

That was odd. All three of them were in my next class, American History, but I hadn't seen any of them exchange two words the entire time that Bella had been there. Alice and Jasper hadn't even really spoken to each other before then, either.

I frowned. None of them, with the possible exception of Alice, had the exhausted, emaciated look of heavy drug users, but why else would they be meeting in the parking lot while the rest of the school was at lunch?

A moment later, though, I shrugged to myself. What did I care? She was just another girl, another junkie. The world was full of them. And they were all going to die anyway; did it really matter what they chose to shoot up their arms?

Rosalie had been speaking, and I made myself pay attention. She smiled complacently as she settled back into Emmett's embrace. "I've decided that we're going to Columbia next year."

"You've already got a graduate degree from Columbia," I remided her, carefully shredding a napkin into strips. I spoke quickly enough that no human ears could understand me, had they even been close enough to hear.

Rosalie shrugged, a perfectly careless gesture. "So I've been there for _graduate_ school. Never for undergrad." She looked up at Emmett, demanding his approval.

He nodded, of course. "Yeah. It'll be fun. It's a big enough city – hang on." He glanced back down at Rosalie. "You know it'll just be us moving, right?"

"Why?" she demanded. "This is enough notice for Carlisle to find a job around there."

"But what about Edward?"

With barely a glance at me, Rosalie replied, "He can come too. Enroll in Stuyvesant or something for his last year of high school."

"That's not fair, Rose," Em disagreed quietly. "For you to expect him to up and move without finishing–"

I shrugged, interrupting him. "It doesn't matter. It'll be the same there, I'm sure. I might not even finish this time. It's driving me mad."

"You said that last time," Emmett laughed.

"Well, I mean it this time."

"So?" Rosalie asked impatiently. "Can we do that or not?"

Emmett glanced at me and I shrugged as the bell rang. "Do what you want, Rosalie," I muttered as I stood and dumped the contents of my lunch tray into the nearest trash can. I shouldered my bag again and left before either of them could say anything else to me.

I'd been living this migratory life for so long, and knew Rosalie well enough, to not care either way where I was next school year. I might even join them at Columbia next year. Or I might not. I might go off by myself again, as I did every few years. There were only so many repetitions of high school I could stomach at a stretch. But I'd hate to hurt Esme, and I knew she hated it when I took off for years at a time.

The halls were still relatively empty, as they always were just as lunch ended. Slowly, the mass of humanity roused itself in the cafeteria, but I ignored it as I strode quickly through the halls. The same thing as every day: Detour to locker, switch out books, start for opposite end of building and end at history room. Because of the detour, I wasn't ever the first one there. Deliberately.

I slid into my seat at the back of the classroom that was hung with various and sundry posters and reincarnations of the American flag and pulled out the homework that had been assigned yesterday. Mr. Berlenbach sat grading papers at his desk, two girls whispered together in a corner, and Jasper Whitlock sat alone in the middle of the last row, staring at the chalkboard. But his pupils weren't dilated, and I could tell from here that his breathing was regular. Interesting. I hadn't seen him or the two girls return to the school.

In twos and threes, the rest of the class entered the room. Alice Brandon was with a boy, Taylor Clarke, and was cheerfully putting up with his attempts to flirt with her. But she wasn't acting oddly either. And when Bella Swan entered a moment later, alone, she was moving fluidly. She slid into her seat in the center of the room without making eye contact with anyone and quietly pulled out her things.

The moment the bell rang, Berlenbach was on his feet, calling for the class's attention. "Today is a lovely day," he intoned, "for me to realize your worst fears."

Curious muttering broke out, which he silenced with a wave of his hand. I just raised my eyebrows and sat back as he continued, "Yes, the rumors you've all heard from the seniors are true: I do assign a partner project that includes both a fifteen-minute presentation and a twelve-page paper, and yes, I do assign the partners at random."

The humans groaned, and I cursed internally. It wasn't that I minded the work – in fact, that project would probably take me three hours if it took me that – it was just that a partner project meant extended periods of contact with another student. Oh, odds were that they wouldn't notice anything out of the ordinary about me, but I didn't like playing the odds. I never had.

"Yes, yes, I get that reaction every year. I keep hoping that you people will mature, but you never seem to do so." Berlenbach shuffled some papers on his desk. "So, now that we've got your emissions of misery out of the way, we may as well get on with it." He began passing out a syllabus. "Our theme this year is going to be Great American Mysteries. Some of them have already been solved, some of them have been left open throughout time. Your job is to not only present me and your peers with the facts of the case, but also offer up a reasonable theory as to what really happened. I'll announce the partners, and then we'll go over the instructions together. It is due exactly eight weeks from today, which should give you more than enough time to come up with something halfway decent."

As the papers progressed down along the rows, Berlenbach returned to a list at his desk and began to read out names in pairs: "Alice Brandon and Traci Pham, on the lost colony at Roanoke. Lorene Chung and Brian Withey, on the reasons behind the Hindenburg crash. Marie Prince and – keep it down, people." He raised his voice over the babble that had sprung up as the humans began making eye contact with each other across the room. "Where was – yes, Marie and Jason Martinez on the fate of Mr. Jimmy Hoffa. Edward Cullen and Isabella Swan on who really shot President Kennedy."

I sank back into my seat, not caring if the girl saw and was offended. Well, at least she seemed to have a pension for privacy. That would make it easier for me.

Berlenbach finished listing off the names, and there was a flurry of movement as everyone stood and rushed to their partners. I didn't move. Nearly a full two minutes later, I heard her drop into the desk next to mine. A sharp voice demanded, "Are you going to try to make this hard for me on purpose?"

Slowly, I turned my head to face her. She was sitting fully sideways in her seat, her clear, brown eyes staring straight at me in a way that no human had since… for quite some time. I allowed myself a small smile as I said, "No. I'll write the paper if you do the presentation. I'd rather not speak during it, if that's all right with you."

"Are you kidding me?" One eyebrow went up, and she fingered the dark blue scarf wrapped around her throat. Despite that and her black blazer, her hair was now up in a sloppy ponytail. No makeup. And still, those remarkably straight eyes.

I forced my eyes away from the motions of her hand at her throat. "No," I repeated. "I just think that's fair."

I expected her to argue more, but she just shrugged. "Whatever. I have too much to worry about to ask you for more work." And she turned around to face front again when Berlenbach called the class to order.

But as he began to read the instructions aloud, I whispered to Bella, "If I write that the Soviets had an agent stationed on the grassy knoll, and another one in the Texas School Book Depository, and that Oswald had nothing to do with it, will you make the presentation match up?"

She hesitated, and I saw the muscles in her jaw tighten almost imperceptibly. "Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman in the Kennedy assassination, as determined by the Warren Commission," she recited, her gaze still fixed forward. This bothered me; it was almost as if I wanted her to look at me when she said it.

"But what if there's more to it?" I had lived through the Kennedy assassination; my Western Civilizations class at Georgetown had been disrupted by it. And I was sure that it wasn't just Oswald.

Bella opened her mouth, closed it, then cut her eyes at me and said, "If you find enough evidence to convince me beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was the Soviets, I'll write the presentation like that." There was a little half-smile on her face, like she was somehow sure I wouldn't find that information.

Meanwhile, I glared at her. If she was trying to trick me into doing all the research myself, she needn't have bothered. I would have done it all anyway. I didn't need some woman-child telling me my own limitations.

We didn't exchange another word the whole period, and when the bell rang, I left without saying goodbye.

"Go long!" Rosalie shrieked at Emmett, clutching the football between her perfect fingernails. She danced about, avoiding Carlisle, as I sped up the field to block Emmett. My motions were robotic, my mind elsewhere. Still, though, I tackled Emmett and pretended that I wasn't letting him overpower me to escape, catch the ball, and rush it to the end zone.

As he threw the football to the ground – with enough force to gouge a gash into the earth – and whooped, I straightened, staring off into the trees. This valley amongst the Olympic peaks was a favorite place of ours, for it was one of the few places we could be ourselves. Esme was refereeing from her favorite perch high up in a Sitka spruce, a gentle smile on her face and her hair back in a high bun. A laughing Carlisle looked nothing like the young, serious doctor his patients and colleagues had come to expect, with his hair mussed and his jeans and T-shirt muddied.

"Again," he shouted, motioning for Emmett to toss him the ball. Emmett's throw was harder than necessary, but he, more than the rest of us, reveled in the strength that the nighttime lent us.

Quickly, I held my hands up and began backing towards the forest. "I'm out. Sorry."

"Edward!" whined Rosalie. "The teams are uneven."

I sent a pleading glance towards Esme, and she nodded in understanding. Sometimes, I thought that she was the only one who realized how hard it was for me to be a perpetual fifth wheel. "I'll play," she told Rosalie, rolling up her sleeves as she jumped down from her perch. She touched my cheek with her fingertips as she passed me, but she didn't speak, for which I was grateful.

I was sprinting before I reached the tree lines, and then I flew. I dashed through the dark forest, which looked not black but purple to my eyes. I didn't bother to leap over the streams; I simply ran through them, passively enjoying the way the water rushed up in two fins around me. The small, gentle vermin of the forest sped away as I approached, but we had just hunted, and they were never very appealing anyway.

But the run felt good – the stretch of muscles that had been confined for twelve hours, forbidden from reaching their full potential. And the small branches that whipped and scratched my skin did no damage against its temporarily diamond-hard texture.

This was me. This was the world I belonged in.

When I reached the edge of Puget Sound, I stopped, relaxing my arms at my sides and breathing in slowly. About three hundred yards to my left lay a lumber yard, deserted for the night, but the tangy smell of sawdust still permeated the air. This, coupled with the sound and smell of the water gently lapping at the sand inches from my shoes, calmed me. Across the sound, to the north, more forest stretched, still but vibrant. I knew I had only a few hours until I had to return home, so that I would not be caught out weak and defenseless when the sun rose again. But for now, I could revel in the truth of my darker nature.

I took a step backwards and then leapt up, flying high enough to reach one of the topmost branches of the pine tree behind me, then swung my body up to sit on the limb. For once, the clouds above the Olympic Peninsula had cleared, and I stared at the starlight reflected on the still waters of the Sound as I fingered the weave of my jeans.

Bella Swan. The first human in years to initiate conversation with me. Granted, it had only been because we had to discuss something and I certainly wasn't going to speak to her first. But it was more than that – it was her _tone_, as if she considered me her equal. As if she wasn't afraid of me. And that, alone, was enough for me to devote more time to thoughts of her than I ever had devoted to a human before.

It was a new sensation, having a human not be afraid of me. But the fear would come soon, I was sure. Although… there was something in her air that seemed to speak to not scaring easily. She carried herself differently from most human girls. Like she knew her own worth.

I shrugged and prepared to jump back out of the tree. It didn't matter. This project of ours would be over soon, and then she would be gone from my slightly shaken life. Everything could return to normal.

As I hit the ground, bending my knees to absorb the shock of my impact, I laughed once. What was a vampire's normal?

**So, what are we thinking?**


	2. Chapter 2

**Two**

**Bella**

For the second time that Friday morning, I twisted the dial on my locker's combination lock, feeling a surprising stab of nostalgia for the newer, non-sticky locks of my high school in Phoenix. Combination locks. What a ridiculous thing to miss.

I wrenched the door open and shoved in the books I'd taken out yesterday afternoon, swapping them for my things for my first two classes. As I started to dig towards the back of the locker, a large white hand abruptly grabbed my locker door and pulled it further back.

I gasped, straightening up, my hand instinctively going for the knife that was not at my waist because, stupidly, I had taken to not wearing it to school since I'd been in Seattle. But it was only Edward Cullen holding the door, staring down at me, his face impassive. "Bella."

"He speaks. Imagine that." Cursing myself for not having been paying enough attention, I used sarcasm to cover my moment of inadequacy. When he didn't reply to that, I turned back to my locker. "Can I help you?"

"Are you free to work on the project this afternoon?" he asked, his tone as clipped as mine.

My eyebrows lifted, even though I didn't turn to face him. "I thought you said yesterday that we were going to work separately."

"Yes," he allowed, "but since we seem to have differing… theories, I thought it would be better if we at least did our research in the same room."

_Research, my ass_. I knew exactly who had killed Kennedy, and I knew why – I'd known since I learned it in my "History of the Agency" class at the Cradle when I was fourteen – but for the sake of national security, I was not ever permitted to discuss it. Instead, policy was to adhere to the Warren Commission's ruling of Oswald as the lone gunman. And I knew that I could be secure in my certainty that Edward Cullen would never find any solid evidence to the contrary.

But I didn't say any of this aloud. Instead, I told him, "I actually can't this weekend. Sorry."

His brow furrowed. "Why not?"

_Because as soon as my classes end today, I'm going to be on a plane to Virginia for a training weekend the likes of which you, in this safe little city, have never imagined_. "It's personal."

We had all been given strict orders to never provide excuses for absences necessitated by the Agency, because if anyone checked out our stories and caught us in lies, it made everything infinitely more awkward. So instead, we all just said we'd be "busy with personal issues" if something came up.

"If you keep Monday afternoon open, though," I continued, "I can do that." I slammed my locker door and started down the hallway, somehow knowing that he'd follow me.

"That's fine," he said. There was a pause, in which the voices of the people around us seemed to rise as he fell into step beside me, then he asked slowly, "Is everything all right?"

"Everything's fine." I kept my voice firm, hoping to discourage any further questions. I didn't want him to become suspicious enough that I'd have to slip him that memory-modifying tea that was still in the prototype phase, given its tendency to eat away the entire hippocampus instead of just the targeted recollections. "But I am a little curious, though. Yesterday, you seemed hell-bent on having nothing to do with me on this project. What happened?"

Maybe I imagined it, but I thought I heard Edward's steps falter. "Nothing. I just realized… that it would be impractical to try to enforce separation. I mean, when both of our grades are on the line."

I turned slowly to face him, and I found myself caught by his eyes. They were a very light brown – so light it was almost gold. When I opened my mouth, I had no idea what to say, but I was saved any embarrassment by the bell. "I'll see you," I said brusquely to Edward, and walked into my trig class without waiting for a reply.

The first twenty minutes of the class were devoted to a quiz, and then we passed forward our homework and Ms. Pansini opened the lecture. I spent most of the class doodling on the sheet of paper in front of me and staring at the droplets of water accumulating on the window. God, did it _ever_ stop raining in this place?

With almost fifteen minutes of class left, my phone buzzed in my pocket, and I surreptitiously pulled it out. A text from Jasper. _Do you have any layovers this afternoon?_

The agency always booked our tickets under one of our aliases, never the same alias twice in a row. The hardest part of training weekends was having the right ID at the airport. I replied, _No, do you?_

_Chicago. You need a ride to the airport?_

The first answer I typed out – _That's a violation of protocol_ – got deleted as I thought of the logistical nightmare that it would be to get to Sea-Tac otherwise. _Thanks. I'd appreciate that._

_No problem. Alice is going separately, though. Her flight leaves an hour later._

_Is she going to get there on time?_

_She should. Her layover's shorter than mine. But if you're flying nonstop, you'll probably beat us both._

I glanced up at the teacher as I debated texting Jasper the question that had been on my mind since yesterday. When we had all met at his car during lunch, Jasper had told me that Alice knew more about the Olympic Peninsula than he did, since he'd grown up in Texas whereas she'd lived here her whole life. So had Irina. In all honesty, this question could probably wait until camp… but I might forget it in the chaos that was camp, and I had a feeling this was important.

So I typed out, _What can you tell me about Edward Cullen?_ and sent it.

Jasper's response came a full minute later. _Not much. They – him and his foster siblings and parents – moved down here from Alaska about two years ago, not long after I showed up. Why? Is he a PL?_

That was just it. I didn't know if he was a potential liability or not. _I don't think so. We're just partnered together for that history thing. We got the Kennedy assassination, and I think he wants to work the grassy knoll/patsy angles._

_Lucky you. Well, you know the rules. Warren commission, blah blah blah._

Smiling to myself, I tucked the phone away. Nobody was supposed to know that Jasper, Alice, and I even knew each others' names. It wouldn't do for me to be caught texting him.

It is a seven-hour flight from Seattle-Tacoma International to Dulles International, in DC. From there, it is a thirty-minute drive, so long as most, if not all, of the common traffic laws are obeyed. Since my flight left at three-thirty Pacific Standard Time, I landed at seven-thirty Eastern Standard Time, and I was the last one arriving in that thirty-minute window. Every training weekend, the Agency sends cars to pick up arriving agents. We miss the cars at our own peril.

Jasper had followed me home, and I'd had just enough time to kiss my dad goodbye – he'd looked at me with resignation; he didn't like this any better than my mom – before I was back outside and in Jasper's car. Of course, his presence outside my home was a dangerous breach of protocol, but we were both sure we hadn't been tailed.

"So why'd you ask about Cullen?" Jasper asked suddenly, pulling onto the freeway that would take us to Sea-Tac. "Aside from the history project thing. I mean, my partner's pretty smart too, but it's not worrying me."

I shrugged, putting my feet up on the dashboard. "I don't know. There's just something about him–"

"Don't go there," Jasper warned, cutting me off. "You know better. Powers that be won't hold with you getting involved with a civilian."

"So what am I gonna do?" I snorted. "Date you? You're having a hard enough time keeping your relationship with Alice a secret from the world. I don't think you could handle me too."

He laughed ruefully, accepting that.

The CIA, unlike most other governmental agencies, actually encourages dating within the ranks. The reasoning is simple: If you're dating someone within the Agency, then you're not dating anyone _outside_ of it, which minimizes your potential to be put in a position of conflict-of-interest.

"He's pretty hot, though," I observed at random, and this time Jasper's laugh was loud and full. "What?" I asked defensively.

"Sure, he is," Jasper answered, still chuckling. "If you go for lanky gingers. Seriously, though, Bella. Don't do something that'll just wind up getting you hurt."

I took the warning in stride, and neither of us spoke again for the entire drive. Jasper left me at the Drop-Offs section before circling the airport again and going to check his car into Long-Term. I walked into the building without looking back. I would land at seven-thirty; the first program at the Cradle would start at eight. We were encouraged to eat and sleep in the airport or on the plane, because the day's training session would not end until one in the morning, and then we had to have our memorial for Irina.

Boarding was uneventful, and, as usual, my fake ID was accepted without question. I slept through most of the flight to Dulles. All I'd had time to buy in the airport was an extra-large smoothie, and it was the envy of the small child in the seat next to me.

The agency limo was about to leave when I caught it; I piled into the back and found three other agents-in-training, two of whom I'd worked with before. "Hey, Bree, Charles."

"Hi, Bella." Bree leaned over our respective bags and hugged me as the limo sped away from Arrivals. "How's life?"

I shrugged. "Same." I turned to the third agent. "Hi. Bella Swan."

He held out her hand and introduced himself as Eric Yorkie. "I've heard good things about you."

Thanking him, I shook, then turned back to Bree. "You need to work on your concealer skills," I smiled, and pointedly eyed the partially-concealed hickey on her neck. She blushed, but didn't look bothered. "So who is he?"

"You know Diego Velasquez, on the undercover focus?"

"Wait, he's straight?" Eric raised an eyebrow, skeptical.

Bree argued with him good-naturedly while Charles turned to me. "I hear you got transferred recently?"

I nodded. "To Seattle, yeah. Filling Irina Alexandrovna's spot."

"That's sad," he frowned. "I mean, they plugged her spot when her kill wasn't even confirmed."

"Wasn't confirmed? I heard they brought her body back."

"You heard wrong." His face closed off. "I was… connected to that op. Her body wasn't recovered."

I sat back, considering that. Not only was it odd for the agents on the op to not recover a body, it was odd that a rumor had spread that they _had_ recovered it. We lied to the rest of the world – we were honest with each other. We didn't spread rumors. That was the way it worked.

Between the twenty-minute drive to Langley and the security scanning of the car at the gate, we had exactly ten minutes to get through personal security before we had to assemble on the Great Lawn. At any other time, I would have taken a moment to admire the sheer beauty of the Cradle – a Palladian-style manor repurposed in the late seventies when the operatives-in-training program grew too big for the Farm's backlot – with its soaring columns and delicate detailing on the façade, but now there was no time, and no light. It was as overcast here as it had been in Seattle and I sighed, certain that someone somewhere was laughing at me.

We were stopped at the door and were chivvied into a single-file line. I was first, and I obediently clasped my hands behind my back and opened my mouth so that the guard could use the tweezers to insert the cotton swab underneath my tongue. While he started the timer for me, he did the same for Charles, Eric, and Bree. By the time he'd finished, he was ready to come back to me, remove the cotton ball, and drop it into the machine that analyzed the DNA in my saliva. Moments later, my picture and information popped up on the screen and the guard nodded. "You're still you, Bella. Now step on over to Frank."

I walked the two paces past his booth and stood with my heels on the electrical-tape line on the floor in front of the next one, spreading my legs to shoulder width and folding my hands behind my head. Frank gave me the standard pat-down search while someone else – he must've been new because I didn't recognize him – searched my overnight bag.

Once we were all cleared, we had to sprint across the lobby, not noticing the giant CIA seal tiled into the floor, nor the scrolling text of the motto engraved around the walls near the ceiling.

_For ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set ye free._

All the rooms were doubles, and my roommate had already unpacked and left. I just threw my bag down on my bed, strapped my dagger to my waist, and raced out the room again, joining the rush of other agents-in-training towards the back courtyard.

Once we exited the building, however, everyone stopped running and we proceeded sedately into our spots in the formation. The agents-in-training were organized by age group, then alphabetically by last name within that frame. I was the second-to-last seventeen-year-old (our official name was Class Five), and Jasper was already in his place to my right. The director of the program, Duke Fontana, called His Eminence behind his back, stood on a raised platform in front of us, arms folded over his chest, and there was just enough light coming from the building that we could see him.

Once everyone was in place, he wordlessly held up his right hand, and we all followed suit. As one, we recited again the oath that we'd taken for the first time when we first entered this program.

My voice was swallowed up by the rest. "_I, Isabella Swan, do solemnly affirm that I will uphold the Constitution of the United States; defend it from all enemies, foreign and domestic; and swear true and unswerving allegiance to the same. Furthermore, I affirm that this bond between myself and my brethren who take this same oath is not to be broken by any outside power. I accept that my first duty is to my country, my second to my brethren, and third to my family. I will to the best of my ability complete the terms of the aforementioned vows. So help me God._"

Then we all lowered our hands and stood, waiting.

Fontana raised his arms. "Welcome back. We have only fifty-six hours together, people, so Classes One through Three, go straight to Interrogation. Classes Four through Six, follow on, but you people will be playing Counter-Interrogation."

I groaned quietly. That meant that we would be playing the part of the suspects that the older students would be interrogating. And CIA interrogation is a little different from what you see on _Law & Order_.

But one thing I will say for the Cradle – we're taught how to handle everything before we're taught how to do anything. We know how to take a punch before we know how to throw one. We know how to land before we know how to fall. And we know how to withstand interrogation before we know how to interrogate. Which was why the older classes were using us as their guinea pigs.

"Classes Seven and Eight," Fontana continued, "proceed to Obstacle Course One. Go to."

"Yes, sir," we all chanted back, then turned and jogged to where we were supposed to be – the two youngest groups out to the woods beyond Fontana, and the rest of us inside. Alice caught up to Jasper and me and wiggled her way between us as we ran.

"All right. Let's go get shot up with Truth Serum," she sang, a fake smile lighting her face, referring to the injectible form of sodium pentathol.

"Or torture," Jasper said, with the detached air of somebody discussing the weather. "There could be torture."

I shrugged. "They wouldn't. Liability issue."

"I didn't say they'd _hit_ us. I was thinking more along the lines of water boarding."

I acknowledged that possibility. It's a little like gang mentality – your training breaks you so that nothing else ever can. But before I could say anything, two of the twenty-one-year-olds (Class Two) jumped me from behind, threw a bag over my head, and pinned my arms to my sides as they lifted me in the air. My instinct switch flipped on, and I kicked out with all my might, bracing my weight against one to strike at the other one, thrusting my shoulders from side to side, all the while feeling myself being carried swiftly into the bowels of the building. There was an 'oof" from my right as Alice was caught as well.

Stage One of our training weekend had begun.

Hours later, I was exhausted, sore, and feeling the beginnings of a large bruise over my right bicep. But I was also feeling the extreme satisfaction of having exhausted three sets of Class Twos without any of them managing to get anything out of me. Thankfully, there had been no sodium pentathol involved.

At least not for me. Glancing around as we got back into formation at the end of the night, I noticed some Class Fours with dazed, vacant expressions, bandages wrapped around their elbows. Jasper's jaw tightened as Alice stumbled to her spot, needing to lean on the arm of Casey, who stood next to her, for support.

"D'you think we'll ever get used to this?" Jasper muttered into my ear, too low for anyone else to hear.

My voice was as quiet when I answered. "We have to."

Fontana cleared his throat and our whispered conversation, as well as those around us, faded. "Good work from everybody tonight. Lights out in half an hour – wake-up is at oh-five hundred. Good night."

"Good night, sir," we all replied, and then formation broke. Jasper rushed to Alice's side, but I turned and went back into the building, rubbing the back of my neck. In a few short hours, I'd be awake again, have fifteen minutes for breakfast, then report for the physical combat training that took six hours. Everyone participated, and while we were sometimes taught new techniques for hand-to-hand combat, we often just partnered off and sparred. It was the kind of practice that we couldn't do at home, because the kids at our local gym might want to know why we were capable of twisting necks so hard that they snapped in less than a second. We never knew what the afternoon would hold for us – the reasoning was that keeping us in the dark was closer to how the field was in the real world. As I knew well enough from experience, things never went the way they should in the field.

But Sunday would be devoted entirely to seminars on intelligence gathering – which could encompass anything from new interrogation techniques to how to tail an enemy to education in the latest technological advances.

None of that was a priority for any of us right now, though.

We all waited just long enough for Fontana and the teaching staff to get off the premises, and in the meantime, we all changed into black clothing. A couple of Class Ones stayed outside, getting everything ready. Just as I pulled my long-sleeve shirt into place on my body, Delia, my roommate, walked in. "Hi, Bella."

We hugged quickly and then she sat down on her bed, waiting for me to finish changing. "I feel kind of guilty," she murmured. "I mean, I never even knew Irina. If you'd asked me to pick her out of formation, there's no way I could've done it."

I shrugged, slipping my feet into my shoes. "Don't worry. There are almost three hundred of us. I can't name everybody either." Taking a seat beside her on her bed, I added, "I don't think she'd be offended. Let's go."

We went to the one dresser in the room and each withdrew a single slender black candle, then joined the others moving through the hallways. No one spoke.

At the building's main door, a Class One stood with a cigarette lighter and lit all of our candles. José, one of the agents I'd known in Phoenix, walked beside me with a nod as we all returned to the same place where formation was held. Only now, there was no set order, no precedence save one: the agents who had been on the op with Irina stood at the front.

The Class Ones had taken a pristine white sheet, written out Irina's full name and ID number on it, and strung it between two poles, high enough that we could all read it clearly in the light of three hundred candles. Some of the household staff, who should have been enforcing lights-out but understood too well what this meant to us, gathered quietly at the back of the crowd.

Three agents, including Charles, stepped forward and touched the flames of their candles to the bottom of the sheet, then stepped back, watching with the rest of us as the three black half-circles at the bottom of the sheet began to eat their way upward, preceded by the rings of bright orange. No one spoke. This was not a time for speeches, for song, for any of mankind's deities. The only purpose in Irina's name going up in smoke was that, if there was an afterlife, she would know that her brethren were remembering her as her name burned.

In the four years that I had been part of the CIA, this ceremony had happened four times before. I had touched my candle to a sheet in one of them. But the difference was that we had been able to bring Josh's body back.

Sparks began to fly as the fire reached the paint that spelled Irina's name, but we did not flinch. The only sound apart from the crackling was the way we all seemed to breathe as one. Eventually, with a _whoosh_, the fire ate the sheet in half, and there were now two pieces of cloth burning in front of us. When I closed my eyes, the negative image was on my lids.

Finally the fire burned up the entire sheet, burned itself up. I inhaled, tasting the ash on the air. In one breath, all three hundred of us blew out our candles.

**Edward**

I swallowed the air, feeling the scent of my prey permeate my body as I slipped into my crouch. The scent of the mountain lion pulled me forward, Carlisle noiselessly moving beside me. This was the first time that just the two of us had gone hunting in years, and I had actually been rather surprised when he'd asked to go with me.

The darkness of the forest seemed to crackle around us, and the cat looked up, fearful, as it caught our scent on the air. In an instant, it was up and bounding away from us. We leapt up in pursuit, the pine needles whispering around us as we raced after it. I caught it first and, snarling, sank my teeth past fur and flesh to find the vein at the jugular. Carlisle's scent strengthened as he bit into the creature's neck from the other side.

Within seconds, it was over.

Carlisle stood, straightening his smooth white button-down, perfunctorily running his tongue over his teeth. I joined him, and looked down at the cat lying limp between us. Its eyes stared blankly at a Sitka spruce, paws still splayed, a large, bloody half-circle at its throat. A breeze picked up, and I automatically pulled the sleeves of my sweatshirt back down to my wrists.

"Shall we return?" Carlisle asked me, "or would you like to find another?"

"I've had enough."

He nodded. "Good. The sun will be rising in about four hours." He began running back towards Seattle, and I silently fell into step beside him. I knew him well enough to see that he had something on his mind, but I waited for him to speak. However, we were nearly out of the Olympics when he spoke.

"Now, Edward. Tell me what is troubling you?"

I looked at him in surprise, almost hitting a tree. "Me? Nothing's bothering me."

The smallest of smiles passed over my father's face. "Don't hide from me," he scolded gently. "You've been quiet – even more so than usual lately. Tell me."

Slowing gradually, and finally coming to a stop, I thought about what he'd said. Nothing had been bothering me – at least not that I'd recognized at the time. Before I knew it, I was saying slowly, "There's a girl…"

The frown on Carlisle's forehead cleared, and before he could school his expression, joy danced across his face. I sighed, exasperated. In the ninety-three years since Carlisle had changed me, he had worried almost constantly that he had changed me too young and condemned me to an eternity of solitude. He never said so aloud, but I knew that one of his most fervent wishes was that I would find a companion – someone to love the way that he loved my mother.

"Not that," I snapped, before he could get any ideas. "It's just that we're partnered for a project together, and she… she doesn't want to talk to me." Disgusted by how childish I sounded, I hurried on, "But I don't feel the same _fear_ from her that I feel from the others."

Carlisle's frown was back. "What, then?"

"I'm not sure." I stared over his head into the forest beyond, but I saw her face, her arched brows, her straightforward expression instead of the trees. "It's as if… she's daring me to try to speak with her."

"Ah," Carlisle laughed. "She's an intellectual challenge, is that it?"

"What? No," I protested, even as a small part of my mind thought that he might be correct. "She's just different. And they're all the same, all the rest of them." I shrugged. "I'm sure it's nothing." I looked back at Carlisle, found his eyes. "One thing that I can promise you: I won't do anything to endanger us. No petty curiosity of mine is going to destroy what you've built for us in this city."

He nodded slowly. "I appreciate that. But…"

I heard what he didn't say – _But I want to see you happy. If this girl can give you happiness, we can all afford to sacrifice._

I was glad he didn't say it aloud. I was not worth any sacrifice on my family's part.

"Hey," said Bella brightly, dropping her bag on the floor and then taking a seat in the armchair beside mine. "I'm sorry, have you been waiting long?"

I put aside the book I'd been reading. "Of course not. I just found these," I motioned to the pile of books on the small table next to my chair. "I thought they might be useful."

The Seattle Public Library is a thing of beauty. Ten stories high, almost an entire city block, its exterior is entirely glass and wrought iron, designed to look like several asymmetric glass plates have been stacked one on top of another, and its interior is entirely light, open, airy spaces. There are no individual rooms on any of the public floors. The first floor is the main circulation desk and the children's materials; the second is for staff only; the third is for reference materials; the fourth for fiction; the fifth for computers; and the sixth through ninth for more nonfiction works that wouldn't fit anywhere else. The tenth floor, however, is reserved entirely to the history of the city. From first-person accounts to its founding to every census report, the materials on that floor are perhaps the most valuable in the building.

Bella and I were meeting in the reading lounge on the fourth floor, and as she reached for the first book I handed to her, she was looking around at the wide open space, the shapes the sunlight made after it filtered in through the glass walls. "I haven't been here since I moved," she mused, her fingers closing around the book. "It's lovely."

I nodded. "Yes, it is." I cleared my throat and she glanced back at me, eyes opaque. "Bella, we're going to need to agree on an angle from which to write this report."

She raised an eyebrow and sat back in her chair. "Earl Warren is probably the most honest man this country has ever seen," she told me, as if _she_ were the one who had been alive at the same time as Warren. "D'you honestly think that any commission he presided over would present a false report to the American people?"

I opened my mouth, then closed it, privately wondering why she was being so stubborn about this. "Of course I don't think he lied, but he could have been fooled. Bella, it doesn't add up–"

She cut me off. "Look. I know people love mysteries and conspiracy theories and all that other crap. I get it. But until you present me with enough information to convince me otherwise, I'm going to say that we write the paper with the assumption that Oswald was the lone gunman and the rest is just hype. You can include the other theories," she hurried, seeing I was about to object, "but I still think mine is the best way to do it."

"Of course you do," I muttered. Aloud, I gave up. "Fine. You research Warren, and I'll look up the others. Let's see if we can't have a first draft of the paper outlined by–" I glanced at the clock. Three thirty. "Two hours from now."

"Sounds good." Bella nodded, a ring of satisfaction in her voice, and leaned over to pull a notebook and pen out of her bag. When she did, her face caught a ray of sunlight, and I could see that she was wearing a rather thick layer of concealing makeup under and around her eyes, as if she was trying to hide the dark circles of a sleepless night or a broken nose. I considered asking her about it, then shrugged and opened another book.

One thing I will say for that girl is that she is efficient. By five thirty, we not only had a detailed outline of the paper completed, but we had also started scripting the presentation. Almost without my noticing it, I was preparing to speak during it. And I was speaking in support of her idea. I set my pen down on the side table and leaned back in my seat.

"What?" she asked, noticing my sudden abstraction.

I shook my head. "You could be an attorney." I ignored her questioning look and flipped back through the page of notes we'd filled. "All right. We're opening with a synopsis of that day in Dallas, then going into Oswald's background, then Ruby's, and then the Warren Commission's investigations and findings." I twirled my pen between my fingertips. "You know, I – I mean my parents were always sure that the CIA had something to do with Kennedy's death."

Bella laughed. "Please. Why would they kill the president?"

"Why does the CIA do anything?" I shrugged. "No one ever really knows their motives."

She reached up and pulled her hair back into a ponytail, securing it with an elastic looped around her wrist. "And you are living proof of what I've been saying. Americans love a conspiracy theory." She rolled her eyes and dropped her arms. "It's of course far too neat that Oswald was a dissatisfied expatriate and he shot the president by himself. Of course he had to have help."

I was about to respond, but I had inhaled slowly when she shifted her hair, breathing in her scent against my better judgement. The motion of her hands drew my attention to her little white throat, the veins so blue against her translucent skin –

Wait.

Frowning, I unconsciously leaned towards her, and she automatically recoiled. "Edward? What's wrong?"

"Are those…" I trailed off, fighting the urge to reach for her, to stroke the shadows I thought I saw beneath her flesh. "Are those bruises on your neck?"

"Oh." Automatically, Bella reached up and tugged at the collar of her blouse, trying unsuccessfully to cover the faint purple marks. "Yeah. I was having issues with a necklace this weekend."

My eyes lifted, found hers. She was again looking at me straight on, but I knew that this was one of the tools of a good liar, because I employed it frequently myself. If you look them right in the eye, they're either so uncomfortable that they drop the issue, or they think you couldn't lie while looking at them like that.

"Bella, they look like fingerprints."

She stretched and flipped a page of the book on her lap. "Yeah, I know. Weird, isn't it?" Her eyes widened when she glanced at the clock on her phone. "Damn. I need to get home."

"Bella–"

"Hmm?" She glanced back up at me, her face open, honest. But her eyes were tight.

Well aware of the irony of my offering her help – had I not been so enthralled by the movement of her blood through her veins a moment ago? – I captured her gaze with mine. "Bella, are you all right?"

Her laugh was so carefree I almost believed her. "Edward, I'm fine. If anyone was hurting me… my dad's a cop, remember?" Standing, she glanced at the glass wall and grimaced. "I hate the damn rain."

I followed her gaze and, for the first time all afternoon, noticed the violence with which the water was lashing the building. "Can I at least take you home?" I asked against my better judgement – I had never had a human in my car before. The thought of her scent, concentrating, building, growing in that enclosed space–

She shook her head, shouldering her bag. "Nah. I'm in my own car. Thanks, though." She began gathering the books up, and I followed suit. "So I'll check out half of these if you get the other half?"

Nodding, I followed her to the escalators, grateful that she avoided the elevators. I was silent as we descended, but my mind was whirling. I'd seen her engage in what I was sure was a drug deal last week. She had disappeared for a full weekend. And now these bruises.

_Don't get involved in their lives_.

It was Rosalie's mantra, and she was usually right. The moment any of us took an interest in any of them, they began to notice us. To wonder. To ask questions. No one had ever guessed the truth, but there had been near misses, mostly with Esme and her loving, caring nature. And I had promised Carlisle. I had promised.

No, I could not afford to worry about Bella Swan. Because she might worry about me in return. And after all, it was perfectly plausible that she had had problems fastening a necklace for a date on Friday or Saturday night.

My gut twisted with something that felt almost like envy, envy for whomever she had worn the necklace for, and a moment later I wanted to laugh at myself. I was turning into an old romantic fool.

I said nothing to her as we checked out the books and shrugged into our respective coats, preparing to leave the building and dash for our cars. Bella glanced up at me. "So… I guess I'll see you tomorrow?"

There was concern in her voice – was it concern that I wouldn't be in school the next day?

Not trusting myself to speak, I nodded, then pulled open the library door with my free hand and left. Again, I did not look back at her.

Ducking my head only slightly against the driving rain, but doing my best to protect the books, I strode to my car. After unlocking it, I dumped the books and my bag in the trunk, then got into the driver's seat. I shoved a 30 Seconds to Mars CD into the drive and turned it up as high as it would go, letting the angry lyrics pound through my body. Stupid. _Stupid_. Growing fascinated with her, wanting to heal her hurt. When no one could ever hurt her more than I could. _Stupid_.

And if she knew what I really was, she would want no help from me. She would run screaming for the police, for the CIA she'd so callously dismissed earlier.

I couldn't trust her. That was what this all came down to. I had started to relax around her, to let my guard down. A mistake that would not happen again. We would finish this silly project, and I would never speak to her again. Simple.

My fist pounded on the dashboard, and a moment later, I was briefly grateful for my reduced strength. I liked this car. I did not want to destroy it.

When our family had first moved here two years ago, Esme had found us a house just far enough outside the city to provide both herself and Carlisle with excuses to never invite colleagues over, yet near enough that no one would wonder at the speed of our commute. I drove up the long, winding driveway through the forest that just barely encroached on the city, and pulled into the attached four-car garage. When I got out, I did not bother to retrieve my school materials. I had all night to do it, after all.

Running a hand through my hair, I brushed past Carlisle's Mercedes, Rosalie's BMW, Emmett's Jeep, and Esme's Cadillac to get to the door in the house. When I opened it, the first thing I heard was Rosalie's voice, shouting.

I looked up at the stairs to see her pounding down them. "_There_ you are." She seized my wrist and tugged me into the dining room. "Carlisle's called a family meeting."

"He has? Why?" I detached my wrist from her claw, but still followed her. I don't know what I was expecting, but it was not the five words Rosalie uttered, the five words that we as a family feared above all others:

"Someone knows what we are."


	3. Chapter 3

**Three**

**Edward**

"What does she mean?" I demanded, striding into the dining room a step before Rosalie.

Carlisle looked up at me from where he sat at the edge of the table, his eyes wearier than I'd ever seen them. Esme, sitting at his right hand, had her fingers intertwined on the table before her, and was staring so fixedly at them that I thought for a moment that nighttime had already fallen and she had returned to stone. Emmett had been leaning against the wall with his arms folded, but when Rosalie entered the room, he went to her and took her hand.

"What does she mean?" I repeated, glaring around at them all. "Someone knows?"

Esme started, her voice shaky. "It might be nothing–"

"It's not nothing," Emmett cut her off, his voice uncharacteristically hard, before he turned to me. "When she was at work–" Esme worked for an architectural firm headquartered in Seattle "–the HR director called her and asked her if she was looking for a job somewhere else. He said it was 'cause some intern had come into the office and asked for her employment records. Later, she was grocery shopping, and there was somebody following her around the store, keeping track of what she put in the cart."

"When I asked Mr. Finch what the intern looked like," Esme said, her eyes still down, "the description matched the girl who was following us around."

I sat down next to her and briefly put a hand on her shoulder. "And what _did_ she look like?"

She shrugged. "A little shorter than Rosalie, pointed face, white-blonde hair that reached her collar. Nothing unusual. Maybe eighteen."

Nodding, I committed the words to memory, then turned to Carlisle. "What should we do?"

He didn't answer for a moment, and Rosalie asked, her voice hard, "Should we move on?"

Carlisle shook his head. "Not yet. If someone _is_ watching, then leaving now would only confirm their suspicions. I'm not willing to have any of you in danger, and it seems to me that we run more of a risk by going than we do by staying. But I must ask all of you to be extra cautious. Don't interact with them any more than is strictly necessary," he added, this last directed at Rose, Em, and me. "She sounds like she's in the right age to go to your school. Keep an eye out. In fact, is there anyone who looks like that?"

Emmett and I shook our heads, but Rosalie replied, "There was one girl, a junior. Her name was Irina. I guess she dropped out or moved or something, because she hasn't been around the last week or so."

Something clicked in my mind. "Which is around the time that Bella came to the school."

"Hold up." Emmett moved around the table to stare at me. "Who's Bella?"

"Oh, she's just–" I shook my head once, impatient "–just this girl I was assigned to do a project with. She doesn't matter. But Irina… I remember her. She was quiet, didn't have too many friends."

"Like us." Rosalie nodded.

"Well, just in case, don't start asking questions about her," said Carlisle slowly. "Let's not draw attention to the fact that we're curious about her. And Edward, this Bella girl–"

I cut him off. "I'm not worried about her. This project is due in three weeks, and it looks like we'll be done long before that. After which I don't expect to ever have cause to talk to her again."

Esme nodded, but Carlisle didn't look convinced. "If you're sure. But if she does or says anything to worry you, tell us."

"Of course." I turned to Esme. "Are you all right?"

At once, her eyes turned tender, and she patted my hand. "I'm fine, dear." Leaning closer, she studied my eyes. "You look thirsty."

"I'm all right," I replied automatically, ignoring the ever-present burn in the back of my throat. I _was_ thirsty, but we had bigger problems just now. "What can be done?"

Carlisle opened his mouth to answer, but Emmett beat him to it. "Nothing," he said flatly. "If we change anything, we look like we're panicking. And there's the possibility – the _possibility_ – that all this shit's a coincidence. Okay?"

Rosalie and Esme nodded, and after a moment, I did too. "Very well," said Carlisle. "But be careful, everyone, all the same." He got up and Esme stood too. Wordlessly, he took her hand and led her up the stairs; I heard the door of their bedroom click shut. Muttering something about working on her car, Rosalie swept to her feet and left for the garage. I glanced at Emmett, and he jerked his head at me; I followed him out into the backyard and we wordlessly took off running.

I expected him to ask me what I really thought of Esme's unfortunate encounter this afternoon, but when he did speak, his voice was conversational. "I've never seen you dismiss a human so quickly before."

I grunted, choosing not to answer until he said something more specific.

"Makes me wonder," said Emmett idly. "Makes me wonder what it is about her that makes you want to call her nothing so bad."

"What are you talking about?" I glanced at him sharply, ignoring the trees as we breezed past them.

He shrugged, but I could see him trying to fight of a smile. "I mean, she's cute. Sure, it'd be stupid to even think about a relationship with a human, but–"

Now I reached out and grabbed his arm, and we both skidded to a stop, dirt flying up around our ankles and spattering the roots of a few of the surrounding Sitka spruces. "_Relationship_?" I spat. "You're insane. You know me better than that, Emmett. I would _never_ bring suspicion upon us in that way."

"Rosalie did." Emmett pulled his wrist out of my grasp. "And here I am. That worked out all right."

"A fluke," I snorted, "if you can even call it working out. God knows you've gotten us into trouble more than once."

"Those were accidents." He shrugged. "Eternity is a long time to wallow in guilt. I've learned to forgive myself. But we weren't talking about you. Do you like her?"

I turned away from him and began to run again. "You sound like one of them."

"Ouch," he laughed as he caught up with me, even as I sped up in an effort to put distance between us. "Give me some credit, kid. I am way more tactful than a teenage human."

"Maybe," I allowed, and he laughed. We ran the next few hundred feet in silence, and I thought back to that afternoon at the library. I had leaned forward, drawn by the pulse in her little white throat – my thirst leapt up, burning at just the thought – when I had seen…

"Emmett," I asked suddenly, "what do we owe them? The humans?"

"Nothing," he started to say, then fell silent. After a moment, he queried slowly, "What do you mean?"

"If… If we think one of them is being hurt, is it our place to tell someone?"

Emmett leapt up onto a rocky outcropping and then plopped down on it, shifting so that there was space for me to sit as well. But I remained standing, leaning against a pine tree and folding my arms.

"Well, I guess that would depend on what makes you think they're being hurt. Like, is it something you could've noticed without being as badass as we are?"

"I think so," I answered slowly, staring off into space. A few seconds later, when he cleared his throat, I turned back to him. "I saw some bruises on Bella's throat. It looked like someone had been… choking her."

A startled expression darted across his face. "Like to strangle her?"

I nodded.

"So what did she say when you asked her about it? I'm guessing you asked her about it," he added, leaning forward and bracing his hands on his knees.

"Just that she'd had some problems putting on a necklace over the weekend." My hands balled into fists against my rib cage as I remembered the lie.

Now Emmett looked confused. "Why isn't that possible?"

The look I shot him was exasperated. "You didn't see the bruises, em. They were _horrible_. And anyway, she just moved here. Who would she know well enough to go out with to something that would need a necklace?"

"Is _that_ what this is about?" Emmett's roar of laughter shook the trees around us, and I glared at him.

"This isn't funny. She could be in danger."

"Or _you _could." His stupid grin spread wider. "You _do_ like her. Am I right?"

"No, you're not," I retorted, trying to clamp down on the irritation that was churning in my chest. "This is why I never try to have serious conversations with you. Why is everyone so eager to believe that I've met my soul mate?" I asked, frustrated, thinking of Carlisle's similar response from a few days ago as I started to run again; Emmett leapt up to chase me. "She's a _human_, Emmett. Aside from the danger it would put her in, I would never even consider doing this to her."

Abruptly Emmett's tone shifted, and he halted of his own accord this time. "Doing what?" he demanded as I stopped to look back at him.

I lifted my hand and waved it at the forest around her. "_This_. Turning her into something not quite beast, not quite human, constantly thirsting after another's life essence, robbed of the sunlight."

"Poetic. Is that really how you see this life?" His eyes were wide, like he couldn't even believe that he had to ask this question.

For my part, I looked at him in surprise as well. "Em, we've been together for nearly seventy years now. How could you not know that's how I feel? This isn't a _life_. It's an existence." Unbidden, the girl's face floated to my mind. Her pale, clear skin, wide brown eyes that were so firm, so secretive… her lips. "If I loved her, if I loved any girl, this is the last thing I would want for her."

Quietly, Emmett asked, "So what do you think Rosalie did to me?"

I faltered. "That's different. You were dying. And you know she could have not brought me a better brother, Em."

He grinned a little at that and allowed, "That's true. But what if…" his face turned thoughtful. "What if it were her who was dying? And nothing you or Carlisle could do would save her? What would you do then?"

For purely academic reasons, I tried to picture it, but I couldn't. Something in my being shied away from the image of the girl, lying broken on some floor somewhere, the light slowly leaving her eyes as her breathing grew more and more labored. I shoved the image away. "You let your imagination run away with you," I said brusquely to Emmett. "Are we going to hunt or not?"

"Me and Rose went yesterday. I'm not thirsty. You?"

"If we're not hunting, I'm going back home." Without looking back, I turned and raced back through the forest. I'd gone nearly a hundred yards before I realized that he wasn't following me. Just as well. I had no time for his pointless speculations just now.

When I got back home, Rosalie was still in the garage, and I could hear no sounds coming from Carlisle and Esme's room. The silence was oppressive. I went up to my room and changed out of my school clothes and into all black – cotton pants and a sweatshirt. Grabbing my iPod, I left the house again, but ran in the opposite direction of where I'd left Emmett.

I did do a little hunting, more out of habit than desire. For some reason, I didn't have it in me to kill the delicate deer, with their fragile necks and wide brown eyes, so I had a satisfying chase and wrestling match with a lone mountain lion.

After that, I made sure that I was not covered in any forest debris before wandering into the city proper. Because it was a Monday night, the nightlife died around midnight, and after that my only company on the streets were maintenance men and the lonely last buses. I walked slowly, my hands in my pockets, observing that my family's interest in my well being was going too far, and maybe it was time for me to leave them for a spell again. If even Carlisle was losing track of how dangerous it would be for me to continue spending time around Bella, allowing her to grow attached to me, then I was distracting them from their own safety.

Very well. I would go home and pack, and be ready to leave by the end of the week. Boarding school in Europe. Teenage runaway. Contact with my birth parents. Carlisle would think of something to tell the school, and in any case no one would remember me long.

That girl, Irina. No one had remembered her for very long either.

The streets were quiet, except for the occasional bus rolling past, until about four in the morning. Then, the activity began around the sound, with the market beginning its preparations for the day. Human chatter as doors clattered open and the smell of fish and produce rent the air as trays and shelves were set out. I walked quietly along First Street until I got to the pier and then stepped out onto it, not stopping until I reached its very edge. There, I folded my arms and stared out over the water.

The sun was just beginning to rise behind me, gilding the waters of Puget Sound, and the tips of the mountains on the opposite edge of the water were thrown into jagged, yellow-pink light. I breathed deeply, inhaling the scent of the mixed salt- and freshwater, feeling the air move over my face. As I stood there, in the path of the sun's rays, I could feel my skin begin to soften, my senses to dull. I was returning to humanity.

Gradually, I could hear a pounding behind me, regular, not unlike a human heartbeat. But that couldn't be right; in my current state, I should be unable to hear a heartbeat. I glanced over my shoulder to see a figure running towards me, along the edge of the docks, its pace measured, its form disciplined. My body turned to face this person as something about the face registered as familiar.

It was Bella. Her long brown hair was tied up in a ponytail that was streaming out behind her, and she was wearing a sweatshirt bearing the name and crest of Georgetown University over a pair of running shorts. When she saw me, she turned onto my pier and slowed to a walk to approach me; I noticed that her face was flushed but she was not panting.

"Hey, Edward." She reached up and removed her earphones – I caught a hint of something that sounded like eighties rock – and pulled down the sleeves of the sweatshirt and wrapped her arms around herself.

I nodded. "Bella. You're… out early."

She laughed once. "And you're not?" She glanced down at my sweatpants. "Are you running too?"

"Er – yes," I decided that was the safest answer. "I don't usually go this way, though. Do you?"

"Yep. I try to get in six miles every day, so…."

"Six miles?" I interrupted, amazed. "Why?"

She shrugged and replied, "'S good for me."

"Oh." Silently, I reevaluated the way I'd judged her to be some sort of addict. No true junkie could stand to push her body to those kinds of limits…. Which meant that her parking lot conversation with the Brandon girl and Whitlock boy had to be about something different.

And then we stood in silence, which felt uncomfortable, like the air was tightening. Or at least that's how it felt for me; when I looked down at her she had come to stand right beside me, close enough that the breeze blew the tips of her hair across my back, and was watching the light travel down the slopes of the mountains with me. Her face was calm.

It struck me then, as it had not before, that something about her was beautiful. It wasn't necessarily physical – although her large dark eyes and long brown hair against the paleness of her skin was certainly striking – but it was more the stoic certainty that seemed to radiate with her. I'd had the thought once before that here was a woman who knew her own worth. But it was more than that – it was also that she believed in that knowledge so much that she would not let anything or anyone shake it.

Although someone had tried, apparently. When I looked, I saw that the hood of her sweatshirt concealed the skin of her neck, even as I could imagine that I saw the edge of a dark purple bruise under the navy blue fabric. And for some reason, I could not resist asking the question.

"Bella?"

"Hmm?" She looked back up at me, her eyes reflecting the newly-minted sunshine.

"Listen." I shifted my weight and turned to fully face her. "I know you told me you were just having trouble fastening a necklace over the weekend–" I saw the corners of her mouth tighten, but I continued anyway – "and I was just wondering if there was anything I could do to help you."

"Oh my _God_," she groaned, tilting her head back. "You're irritating me. I don't know why it's so hard for you to believe, but some people are accessory-challenged. And anyway," she added, facing back at me, a note of steel in her eyes, "I am a big girl, Edward. If anyone were hurting me, I would be able to handle it. Okay?"

_Methinks the lady doth protest too much_. I answered slowly, "I'm not sure if I'm willing to take your word on that, Bella."

"Why does it matter to you?" she snapped.

Unwittingly, I took a step forward, and although her face tensed and her right hand twitched towards her waist as it had when I'd surprised her at her locker, she did not move away from me. My eyes found hers, and the way the yellow light of new morning bathed them, they were almost as golden as mine. And deep.

Maybe this was how men fell. Not through any dramatic speeches or gestures, but through moments like this. Maybe they just saw the eyes of a girl, and those eyes looked deep and soft and safe.

Before I knew it, my hand had drifted up so that the fingertips could ghost over her cheek. The skin covering my hand tingled, and I swallowed hard. The words came softly. "I don't like the idea of your being hurt."

She blinked once, and I thought I felt her begin to lean into my hand. "Why?"

I didn't answer. If I had been a normal man, I might have slid my hand down and shifted the neck of her sweatshirt to the side, to expose her bruises. I might have caressed them; I might have promised her that I would keep her safe. I might have kissed her.

But I was not a normal man.

And so I broke that shining moment. Clearing my throat, I stepped back, laughing once, ruefully. "I'm sorry. You're right, it's not my concern. I'm leaving soon, anyway."

Bella blinked again, but this time she appeared confused. "Wait. What?"

"I'm leaving Seattle. I… my birth parents contacted me." I thrust my hands into the pockets of my own sweatshirt, avoiding her eyes as I did so. "I should go."

"Um. Hold on." The planks of the pier creaked beneath our feet. "Not to undercut the importance of that – congratulations, by the way – but we _do _have a project to finish together."

Now I did look up, only to stare at her blankly. "Are you serious?"

She bit her lip, shifting nervously from one foot to the other, an uncharacteristically unsettled look on her face. "I mean, yeah, your birth family is more important," she said hurriedly, "and I don't mind doing it on my own. Of course you should go. Sorry."

I was still watching her as she finished babbling, my mind whirring. I didn't care about the project, and I had the feeling that she didn't either. But for some reason, I wondered if that wasn't why she'd brought it up. A few moments ago, she'd let me put my hand to her cheek. "I can stay," I found myself saying, and she looked up quickly, something like hope darting through her eyes. "Just until we get it done."

"Edward, your family's important–"

"They can wait," I cut her off, smiling. But then, a bucket of ice cascaded into my stomach. I'd allowed her to undo me. Everything that Carlisle suspected, everything that Emmett had implied… I was proving them right. And it would destroy us all.

Bella was still smiling up at me, oblivious. "Do you wanna run back together?"

"I think we're going in opposite directions," I replied brusquely, now thinking only of getting out of there, internally cursing myself for my stupidity. Had I not just been talking to Emmett, to myself, about the need to stay away from this girl? Was I so weak as to forget that as soon as she batted her lashes at me? "I'll see you at school, Bella."

"Fine." When I looked back up at her, surprised by the sudden chill in her voice, her eyes were cold too. She put her earphones back in and turned, striding back up the pier. "I'll see you later," she threw over her shoulder before she began to run again.

I stayed where I was, watching her move along the docks until she was out of sight. By then, the sun had risen fully, and I knew I had to get back home to change for school.

**So I'm really bad at author's notes and stuff, but I hope you're enjoying this so far :)**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

**Bella**

"_Damn_ him," I hissed to myself as I finally reentered my neighborhood. Catching me off guard, asking questions, making me say too much. He'd blow my cover, I knew he would. _Damn him_.

I slowed my pace a little for the last three blocks, giving my body the chance to cool down at the end of my run. I was getting slower, I knew that. Blame it on seasonal affective disorder. You could never see the sky here; it was like a cage. Well, not today. Today looked like it might actually be clear. I glanced up at the sky, grateful.

Just as I stepped onto the front porch of my father's house, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I sighed deeply as I pulled it out, the resignation sweeping over me. Nobody called me this early, nobody except – I hit send and pulled my iPod speakers out again. "Hello?"

"I'm sorry – I seem to have dialed the wrong number." The voice was new, not the guy who usually gave us our assignments.

"It's okay," I replied, then waited, nudging a loose board on the floor with the toe of my running shoe.

"I was wondering if you could give me the correct one?"

I rolled my eyes, silently mocking this person for his uncertainty. Didn't he know that the CIA was never uncertain? All the same, I replied with my operative ID number: "One-one-six-seven-nine-five-four-three-dash-C-three."

"Uh. Yeah, good. So… Caitlin Baxter, Southwest Airlines flight six seventy-four, tracking number B-three-eight-five-twenty-three. Stopover in Chicago. Departure time oh-eight-hundred. Any questions?"

"Just one," I answered, glancing at my watch as I quickly unlocked the door and slipped inside. "How long have you been on this assignment?"

The voice, whoever he was, chuckled. "Not long. I'm injured right now – designated disabled. Anything else?"

"Nope, I am good," I said more cheerfully than I felt, then ended the call and went in search of my father. "Dad?"

He ambled out of the kitchen, his police uniform unbuttoned at the neck. "Hey, Bells. Can I get you any breakfast?"

"I'd love to." I tapped my phone against the palm of my hand. "But Virginia just called. And I gotta go."

At once, his face fell, and my heart broke a little for him. It was hard enough for me, knowing exactly what I risked. But I was all he had, and he didn't have any idea what I was really up against. I supposed that was worse. "Okay. Are you going to need a ride to the airport?"

"Just to the Light Rail. You know they don't like us to leave our cars in long-term." I turned for the stairs. "Just give me ten minutes to shower and change."

As I pounded up the stairs and to my room, diving into my closet to fish out the wallet and ID for Caitlin Baxter, I didn't realize that I'd already forgotten my encounter with Edward Cullen. I was off to my real world now – there was no space in my head for him.

"Hey, Brady," I greeted the front-of-house security guard as I stepped out of the car at the Cradle some ten hours later. "How's it going?"

"Pretty good," he replied as I handed off my bag to be searched by Malia, the other guard. "You know the drill."

Obligingly, I put my heels on the red line, folded my hands behind my back, and opened my mouth. He inserted the cotton swab under my tongue, then replaced the forceps on his desk and began the pat-down search. While he did that, I glanced up and saw that the clouds that had temporarily abated in Seattle had once again made their way here. This was not funny.

"Open up." Brady withdrew the cotton swab and dropped it into the scanner, nodding approvingly as it beeped. "Now get in there. You're in Conference Room C."

"Thanks, bud." I smiled at Malia, retrieved my bag (Malia didn't smile back because Malia never smiles at all), and crossed the marble foyer, stepping over the seal in the floor as I did so. The echoing silence was a marked contrast from this weekend.

But, just as I reached the door that would take me into the hallway I needed, the main glass doors swung open behind me and someone called out, "Bella! Honey, that you?"

Smiling, I turned around to see a Class Six, Desiree, hurrying across the room towards me. Desiree was a big beautiful black girl with a personality to match, and I was almost lost in the bone-crushing hug she gave me. "Hey, lovely. How've you been?"

She grinned. "Great. Where you headed? C?" I nodded. "Me too! God, how long's it been since we worked together?"

"Too long. At least a year." I linked my arm with her and we entered the hallway together. We chatted some more as we journeyed further into the bowels of the building, nodding when we occasionally met someone else. Finally, we saw the black door with nothing but a large letter C on it, and I held it open for Desiree, and shutting it once I'd entered after her.

There were already two men in the room, one our age and one who was a full agent already; he was at least forty. He glanced up from his iPhone only long enough to introduce himself as Agent Farley. Desiree and I nodded at him but greeted the boy, whose name was Garrett, effusively. I'd never worked with him, but we'd grown to be quite good friends with, given that he was a Class Four, only one level above me.

The wall sconces were only half-lit, and we all sat silently in the semidarkness for about a minute until the door opened again. Automatically, Desiree, Garrett, and I all stood, and Farley sat up a little straighter. "Keep your seats," said Agent Svensen brusquely, striding around the table and dropping her briefcase onto the table, then pulling out her laptop and hooking it up to the LCD projector. "You'll be flying up to Ottawa, because it is our belief that, at a State Dinner hosted by the Canadian Prime Minister tomorrow night, there will be a Russian dignitary–" she pressed a button on her laptop and the dark-skinned and bearded face of a man with a hook nose and small beady eyes filled the screen behind her "–Dmitri Agrafena, who is going to be passing off information about a planned attack on the city of Chicago. Your job is to intercept that information."

Desiree whispered to me, "I thought the Canadians were our allies."

"So are the Israelis," I murmured in reply, "and there are still plenty of people in Israel who would gladly see us in hell. Anyway, I don't think the Canadian government would ever sanction this."

Svensen ignored us and continued with the assignment. "The person who is supposed to receive that intelligence–" another click, and a second bearded face filled the screen "–is this man, Peter Kaisikov. Agent Farley will be impersonating him, whilst Agent Drumthwacket–" she nodded at Garrett "–will be playing his son. Agent Swan will be Drumthwacket's girlfriend. But be aware, Drumthwacket, you may have to extract information from Agrafena's own daughter. Use…" here Svensen allowed herself a brief smile, "any means you think necessary to get this information."

"Excellent," Garrett hissed. "I get Bella as arm candy, _and_ I get to bang a hot Russian girl."

Farley snorted and said curtly, "That won't be necessary." We ignored him.

"Where does that leave me, ma'am?" Desiree asked. "Will I be working control?"

Svensen nodded. "We've booked you a room at a nearby hotel. Unfortunately, you'll have to case the place alone, seeing as to how the other three will be staying at the Hyatt Regency."

Desiree shrugged. "I can work with that."

"Very well," Svensen nodded again. "Now, if you'll all proceed to wardrobe, you'll find your official assignment report and other materials waiting."

Garrett, Desiree, and I stood up again. "Thank you, ma'am."

Once she was gone, Farley stood too and buttoned his blazer. "It'll take me a while to get done with makeup," he muttered as he gathered his things. "Just so you all know, I've never worked with the Kiddy Division before, and I'm not exactly thrilled about this. But I caught the chatter, and so the op fell to me." Now he looked up at the three of us, and a stony silence spread. He broke it by snapping, "Don't fuck it up for me."

With that, he left without looking back. When the door clicked shut, Desiree sighed. "This is gonna be a fun one."

Twenty minutes later, Garrett and I were standing on side-by-side stools, facing a large mirror while wardrobe techs fluttered around us, putting the last-minute touches on our formal outfits. "I've never worn something this fancy in a scenario where it wasn't likely I'd get shot," I mused aloud, fingering the silvery fabric of my halter dress.

"Really?" Garrett looked at me in surprise. "Like, you've never been to a school dance or anything?"

"You know the rules, dude."

"Yeah, but I don't _follow_ them."

I giggled as one of the techs, and older lady, clucked her tongue in disapproval. "Now you hear me, Mr. Drumthwacket. You should know by now that the walls have ears. Don't you be saying things like that in this building."

"Yes, ma'am." Garrett rolled his eyes as he adjusted the white bow tie around his neck.

Finally, the head tech straightened up and nodded in satisfaction. "Good. Now both of you go change into your street clothing and we'll pack these up for you."

That was done, and we departed for the airport. For security reasons, Garrett and I were on a different flight from Desiree and Farley, but we didn't sit together. Upon landing, the undercover work started. We all had roles to play. Other than passing us our communications units – Farley and Garrett had theirs in tie clips; mine was in one of my earrings – Desiree was to have no further contact with us until that night. In fact, while the guys would be able to communicate with her, the only person who could hear her voice would be me, because of the nature of the work that the others would be doing. I was backup.

On paper, the operation was simple: Farley, as Kaisikov, would chat up Agrafena. Garrett would get what he could out of the daughter. Desiree and I were to just have their backs.

It was only when I was slipping into my dress that night and testing my comms unit did I remember Edward, and the Kennedy project. It would seem very odd that I'd made such a big damn deal about the project this morning, and then I hadn't even shown up to school that day. Oh well. I could always tell him I'd twisted my ankle on the way home. But that wouldn't work, would it… he already thought I was the product of an abusive home environment. Again, I internally cursed the Class Two who had tried to throttle me during the training weekend and left those marks. So, I'd have to come up with something else–

"Bella." Garrett pounded on the bathroom door. "Hurry up. The limo's waiting."

"Sorry," I called back, and slid one more bobby pin into my hair. I unlocked the door and stepped back into the hotel room to see Garrett and Farley in nearly matching tuxedos, but Farley's false beard and tan made him look a little like the Unibomber. But he did bear a striking resemblance to the photo of Kaisikov.

"You look good," Garrett grinned as I sat down to put on my overly tall, impractical shoes.

"Thanks. You do too."

"Let's go," Farley cut us off in Russian. "And I don't want to hear any more English tonight unless you have an incredibly thick accent."

Straightening up, I glared at him as Garrett offered me his arm. "Yes, sir," I replied, my own Russian impeccable. Desiree's voice laughed in my ear through the comms unit.

None of us spoke in the limo, and Farley all but ignored us when we pulled up to the red carpet in front of the residence at 24 Sussex Drive, an old stone mansion outside the gates of the city. In my ear, Desiree whispered, "Shouldn't he appear to like you guys more?"

I'd wondered that myself, but didn't reply, which was just as well because at that moment, the limo pulled to a stop and Farley was letting himself out, leaving Garrett to escort me, which he did with aplomb. "Look more shy," he hissed at me while grinning at the other overly dressed people on the red carpet, and I appropriately lowered my head, widened my eyes, and tried to shrink upon myself. "Not that shy. You're making me look like a pedophile."

I held in a giggle while Desiree's laugh was loud and full.

The inside of the building was lavishly appointed, and already crowded. White-jacketed waiters circulated, offering champagne to Garrett and me in blatant defiance of our ages; he took one and I didn't, although he did dump his into a planter at the nearest opportunity. Farley eventually remembered that this was supposed to be a team effort and made a show of introducing 'my son and his lovely companion' to whomever spoke with him. Desiree had hacked into the security cameras by then and was keeping me appraised of Agrafena's location as well as a running commentary of who wasn't socializing – because it was likely that they were somebody's undercover bodyguards. I made a few of them myself, of course, but I could only look so many places at once.

When the dancing opened, there was really no way around taking a couple of turns around the floor with Garrett – after all, it was part of my cover that I was a product of the Moscow debutante scene. I smiled, but maintained my shy demeanor with everyone but Garrett, taking care to case exits and watch for anyone watching me as I did so. As soon as my third song – some sort of waltz – ended, I searched for Garrett only to see him with his arm around the waist of a tall, svelte blonde girl, whom I recognized from the photos as Agrafena's daughter. And then I had to bite back a laugh.

"What's funny?" Desiree asked me.

"You remember how Garrett was all excited about getting to sleep with the Agrafena girl?" I murmured, barely moving my lips as my amused eyes caught Garrett's vaguely irritated ones over the blonde's shoulder. "Well, he found her… and she's kind of ugly. And she's wearing a purity ring."

"That's unfortunate," she replied, "because Farley's been on Agrafena all night, and so far, no intel has passed between them. I've been listening."

"_Shit_. You sure?"

"Yeah. Lots of talk about the weather and Premier Putin. But Agrafena hasn't even mentioned America, and Farley's not going to be the first one to bring it up."

I signaled to Garret, then turned around, finding the nearest large ornamental mirror in his eyeline. Holding eye contact with him in the mirror, I pretended to be fixing my eye makeup as I used American Sign Language to tell him, _Agra isn't giving Farley crap. You gotta get it out of the girl. And hurry._

Garrett nodded once, and at once his hand began creeping lower on the back of the girl's dress while he simultaneously signaled for another glass of champagne. I faced back into the party, grabbed a glass on my own, and began circulating through the room because people would notice me much quicker if I simply tried to sit down.

"You think we should abort?" Desiree asked me, worry creeping into her voice, and I knew that she too had seen the resistance that Garrett was meeting as he tried to get the blonde to join him out on the balcony for a smoke.

"Not yet," I replied, pretending to sip my champagne. "We haven't hit the four-hour mark yet. But if Garrett can't get anything out of the daughter and Farley's still got jack, then I say we call it off." I tried to catch Farley's eye, but he was studiously ignoring me. Damn him, if his determination to carry this op on his own got Garrett in trouble, I would kill him.

"_Fuck_," Desiree snapped, and I was almost startled enough to drop my champagne flute. "Bella, go find Garrett. Go find him now."

I was already moving, cutting through the large cloud of cigar smoke between two portly gentlemen. "Where is he?"

"Northern balcony – behind the Prime Minister's Foreign Affairs Minister. I think he's okay, he just needs some help."

Moving as quickly yet subtly as I could, I edged my way back around the perimeter of the room, dodging inebriated partygoers, and finally slipped out the French doors onto the balcony, which was unoccupied save for my partner and the girl whose skirt he'd been supposed to get up. Only she was lying on the concrete floor while he knelt over her, two fingertips pressed to her carotid. "What the hell happened?"

Garrett looked up, and he seemed remarkably relaxed, considering that I was about ready to punch him in the face. "Oh, hey, Bella," he said casually. "So that whole sex thing wasn't going to work, so I got her out here, and then I knocked her out."

"I see that," I replied, irritably kneeling down on the girl's other side. "And this seemed like a good idea why, exactly?"

He shifted. "We've been talking for almost two hours ago, and it's clear that she's really upset by _something_ that her father's doing, but she won't tell me what. So I was thinking that if I did something horrible to her and you saved her…"

"She might trust me enough to spill," I nodded. "And then you can get back in there and cover Farley's ass. Okay, back away a little. I'll wake her up."

As Garrett stood and moved back to the railing of the balcony, I reached into the cup of my halter dress that held my left breast and pulled out my little emergency kit – a miniature Swiss Army knife, a false ID, and a pouch of smelling salts. These I waved under the girl's (admittedly rather large and pointy) nose, and then sat back, waiting for her to stir. Meanwhile, I tucked my survival kit away again.

Just as her eyes fluttered open, I spun to face Garrett and swore at him in Russian. "You bastard, Evgeny! Bad enough that you abandon me the moment we walk into this party, but then you try and take advantage of this girl! Have I not been spreading my legs wide enough for you?"

The Agrafena girl stirred and tried to sit up. "What–?"

Garrett leaned against the railing and glared down at me in disgust. "Oh, come on, Valentina," he scoffed. "I haven't had you for a week now. And forgive me for offering to show a nice girl a good time."

"A good time?" I repeated incredulously. "Then why is she lying on the ground with her skirt up around her knees?" Behind me, the girl sputtered and I heard fabric rustle as she tried to cover herself.

"Grow up, Val," Garrett snorted, improvising the nickname on the spot and shoving away from the balcony wall. "I'm going back inside."

"You sure as hell are," I shot back, "go run to your father the way you always do. Everyone knows, Evgeny! Everyone knows that he and that so-called diplomat are planning something horrible for the Americans. I only hope someone catches them and then you can all burn in hell!"

Garrett shot me one last venom-filled look before yanking open the French doors and striding back into the party, slamming it behind him. Once he was gone, I turned to the girl. "Are you all right?" I asked, gently now.

"I – I think so," she said slowly, rubbing the back of her neck where Garrett had probably hit her.

"Nice," Desiree whispered in my ear, her English jarring after the Russian that had been surrounding me for the last several seconds.

I helped the blonde girl to her feet, steadying her. "Come. Is your family here?"

"Oh… oh, let's not tell them," she implored me. "Could you please just help me find a restroom?"

_Yes_, I internally exulted, but I kept my face calm. "Of course." I linked my arm with her, making sure we seemed only like a couple of girlfriends going through a little emotional crisis, and then reentered the party. I noticed, although I wasn't sure if she did, the way that conversation hushed and crowds parted at our approach. Thankfully, the public restroom we found was entirely empty.

I watched her pump huge amounts of soap into her hands and vigorously wash her neck and arms before I said quietly, "I'm sorry, I'm Valentina Alexeyevna Buryekovna. I don't know what your name is."

At once, her motions stopped, and she looked up at me in the mirror. I was struck by how huge and hollow her eyes seemed. "Dominika Dmitrievnya Agrafena."

My face froze into a wary expression and I took a slow step back, like I was unaware of myself doing it. At once, her face fell. "I knew it," she sighed, a slight French accent creeping into her Russian; I remembered that she'd been sent to boarding school in Switzerland. "I knew you would react like that when you heard my father's name. God, I hate him."

At that, I cautiously approached her again. "I'm sure you don't hate him…"

She slammed down the bar of soap, and it rebounded against the sink and flew across the room. She flinched; I didn't. "I do, though," she growled (in case you've never heard it, growling in Russian is very impressive). "He ruins _everything_. Now everyone fears me, and I haven't even done anything!"

_Sympathy. Now would be a good time for sympathy._ "That must be horrible," I said quietly.

"It's worse than horrible," she wailed. "And now he's going to do something evil and I can't do anything to stop it!"

In my ear, Desiree's breath caught. Trying not to seem too interested, I murmured to Dominika, "I'm sure it can't be that bad…"

"But it is… He wants to blow up a college in America," she replied miserably, staring at her own sunken eyes in the mirror. "For no real reason, either. It's just because the school is Jewish…"

"Running a check on Jewish colleges and rabbinical schools," Desiree told me, and I could almost hear her keyboard clicking in the background. "And… the four biggest ones are Brandeis in Maryland, American Jewish University in LA, Yeshiva University in New York, and Gratz College in Philly. Can she be any more specific?"

I frowned. "Why a Jewish school? Do you know?"

"Nobody knows," she sighed. "But he wants to do it on the first night of Purim. And to think that… that boy's father is helping him! And that boy put his hands on me…." She dissolved into tears again.

_Think, Bella, dammit_. "You know," I said slowly, "a lot of schools that were founded on religious principles pay only passing attention to the religions anymore. At least, that's what I hear about schools in America."

Dominika shrugged. "It doesn't even matter to him. He just wants to do it in that city – I'm not good with English or Latin, but I guess the names means love or something…"

"Fucking Philadelphia," Desiree shouted, and I almost winced at the sharp sound in my ear. "So it's Gratz. It has to be. Okay, can we call abort now?"

"Why don't you just run away?" I impulsively asked Dominika, and she looked up at me in surprise.

"And go where?" The question was simple, and all I could do was nod. She glanced at herself one last time in the mirror, making sure that every last blonde hair was in place. "We should go back. I will be missed, and the party is about to end anyhow."

I nodded and let her lead the way back out into the main room. When we were back in the thick of the party, she still hovered around me, but I did manage to catch Garrett's eye and shoot him a quick half-smile. The relief on his face was so obvious that I was sure he would give us away for a moment, then he turned and went to go find Farley, presumably to brush-pass him and tell him we were good.

A consequence of our little episode out on the balcony was that, not only was I unable to speak to Garrett anymore throughout the last hour of the evening, but when Agrafena's bodyguards came looking for Dominika, she dragged me with her. And that was how I found myself face to face with not only the man himself but also with Farley, who looked none too pleased at my intrusion.

"Dominika?" Agrafena rumbled. "Who is this?"

The poor girl's hand tightened around mine. "Her name is Valentina, Baba. I met her earlier tonight."

"You'll have to forgive the girl," said Farley smoothly in Russian. "She is the companion of my son, and he seems to have lost his hold on her. Valentina, you will please go find Evgeny and wait outside for the car. The dance closes in a few moments." He glared at me out of the corner of his eyes, clearly wishing me gone.

I bobbed Agrafena a little curtsey and excused myself, but not before I shot Farley a venomous look on my own. He hadn't gotten jack after nearly four hours of work, and here it had taken me all of thirty seconds to figure it out. As I left, though, I caught Dominika's eyes one last time and had to swallow my reaction to the desperation I saw there. Forcing myself to walk away through the crowd, I consigned her image to one of the many that haunted my nightmares – the innocent we couldn't save.

Eventually, I found Garrett sitting glumly in a corner, pretending to slog champagne. "Evgeny, we need to go," I told him brusquely in Russian. "Your father has summoned the car."

He scowled at me before setting down his glass and standing up. He'd done a good job fake-rumpling his appearance, but his breath didn't smell like alcohol. Hopefully no one had noticed. He silently accompanied me to the coat check and retrieved my wrap and his coat before we joined the genteel crush of foreign accents now leaving the building.

Once outside, we hovered off to the side, watching carefully as the rest of the partygoers – the ones who had come to actually attend a party – loaded themselves into limos and towncars, which then sped off into the forest and the night. Eventually Farley found us, fastidiously straightening the lapels of his tuxedo jacket and looking none too pleased.

I turned my head slightly, and my earrings wobbled. "Des, we clear to leave?"

"Go for it," Desiree replied, and I nodded slightly at the others. Together, the three of us slid into the limo. Once inside, Garrett stopped trying to keep the smirk off his face, but Farley didn't ask him about it until we were back in our hotel room and we'd thoroughly swept for bugs.

"Well?" he demanded impatiently. "I don't know what you're so happy about. The op got blown."

"Didn't," I pronounced, sitting and reaching down to remove my stupid strappy painful shoes.

Farley stared at me, then at Garrett, while Desiree sniggered in my ear. "We got it out of the daughter," Garrett grinned at him, then nodded at me. I explained everything that had happened on the balcony, then in the ladies' room. Farley blinked.

"That's _right_," hissed Desiree. "How's that for fucking it up for you, bitch?"

"Agent Farley," I started, adopting a more conciliatory tone, "I appreciate your fervor, but I think that it was unfair of you to enter this op assuming that Agents Grafton and Johnson and myself were not fully capable operatives. The core of our work as an agency is trust. If we consistently don't trust our teammates the way you mistrusted the three of us tonight, then all our ops would fail."

He snapped, "Don't lecture me about trust," but then Garrett cut him off.

"Then should she lecture you on how to successfully meet an operation's ends? 'Cause we did and you didn't, dude."

"_Garrett_."

Garrett waved his hand at me. "Just tell him, so we can get to sleep and then get out of here."

I sighed. "Gratz college in Philadelphia on Purim. Okay?"

"Wonderful," Farley scowled. "But if you had wanted to listen to me instead of give me a lecture on the skills necessary to become a fully functional agent, I could tell you that Agrafena didn't want to 'talk shop' at the party tonight, and so I have to meet him for breakfast tomorrow morning."

I deflated, and Desiree cursed under her breath. Garrett's eyebrows furrowed.

"But," continued Farley, "I don't want the three of you hanging around the hotel room causing me problems. So you can all go back as scheduled, and _if_ the intel I get from Agrafena tomorrow jives with what you say about Philadelphia, I'll apologize. But not until then. All right?"

"Did he just say _jives_?" Desiree whispered to me, and I swallowed a laugh.

"Fine," Garrett said brusquely. "Now Agent Swan and I are going back to our room." And before anyone else could answer him, he'd stood up and taken my wrist, steering me towards the door and out into the hallway. Again, we swept for bugs and came up empty.

I tugged on my earring. "Desiree, I'm going to shut off the comms unit now. You're safe there?"

"Of course," she answered brightly. "Got my knife, got my phone, got my alarm clock set. If our flight leaves at three thirty, we should all probably be at the airport by two."

I glanced at the clock; it was about twelve-thirty now. "Sounds good."

After a few more warnings from both of us, she signed off, and I removed the earring. "We good?" Garrett asked.

"We're good."

He let me use the bathroom first, and by the time I was done, he had already changed into a pair of regulation sweats and a T-shirt and zipped his tux back into its garment bag. There were two double beds in the room, thank goodness, and I turned down the sheets on my own and considered raiding the minibar. I hadn't eaten anything since about noon, and I was starving.

Garrett came out of the bathroom just as I was setting the alarm clock for one-thirty AM. "Is it too risky to order room service? Should we just eat at the airport?"

"I think so. After all, you _did_ try to rape a foreign dignitary's daughter," I smiled up at him. "We might've been followed back here."

"Shaddup," he grumbled, scrambling into his own bed. But before I could click the light off, he asked suddenly, "Oh, have you heard the rumor about Operation Fang?"

"Operation Fang?"

"Yeah." He sat back up. "There's this bat-shit crazy – no pun intended – story going around that some agents came back to the Cradle from an op saying that they had information indicating that vampires exist."

"No way," I straightened too and turned to face him across the alley between the beds, my eyebrows raised. Some weird stories had circulated the Cradle and its agents, but never anything as weird as that. "Vampires?"

He laughed. "I don't know the full story. But apparently what they brought back was credible enough to get the attention of His Eminence Fontana, and there's like this full-scale investigation going on."

I frowned. "What could they possibly be investigating to find creatures that don't exist?"

"Cloudy places, I guess," he shrugged. "Like, I bet they're assuming that all those garlic-slash-crucifix-slash-sunlight-slash-holy water stories are true, so they're looking in places that don't have a lot of any of the above." He paused, and I saw laughter glint in his eyes. "You got relocated to Seattle, right? Keep your eyes open."

I rolled my eyes and lay back down. "I'll do that. Now I am going to take an hour-long power nap so we can get going when the alarm rings. Good night, Garrett."

He laughed again. "Good night, skeptic. You know, most legends do have a grain of truth to them."

"Maybe," I allowed. "But only the ones that are physically possible at all to begin with. Vampires don't exist. And the CIA is a bunch of imaginative, excitable children."

When the alarm went off at one thirty, it felt like we had only slept for a moment, but that was because we had. Nevertheless, we woke up quickly, packed in the darkness, and were out of the hotel room by one thirty-four. We took separate cabs to the airport and did not react when Desiree arrived a moment behind us. We were all on the same flight, but traveling under assumed names, and not together.

Knowing that the other two had my back, and that I was watching theirs, I wandered up and down the few food establishments available in the terminal, scanning the menu boards and evaluating the progress made last night. We knew the target, and we knew the date. We did not know the nature of the attack, nor did we know exactly who the responsible parties were. We did not know the cause, but the CIA will be the first to tell you that cause is the last thing that matters when preventing terrorism.

I ordered a large muffin and a cup of coffee from a tired-looking guy manning a bakery counter, and glanced around the terminal as I waited. The news playing softly on the TV was in French, and I closed my eyes briefly as the musical language floated towards me. French had been my second language – third, actually, after English and Spanish. Once I'd mastered those three as well as Russian, I'd quickly learned Arabic and Urdu and finally Greek. I also had a passing knowledge of Italian.

"Votre café, ma'amoiselle," grunted the boy behind the counter, and I took my cup with a word of thanks before adding liberal amounts of cream and sugar to it. I didn't care if I lived in Seattle now and everyone there drank their coffee black; I turned mine into cheesecake and they could just deal.

Taking my cheesecake-coffee in one hand and my muffin in the other, I chose a table in a corner, and sat with my back to the wall, facing the room. Desiree was against another wall sucking down what looked like an extra-large smoothie, while Garrett, being Garrett, was eating what had to be the largest cheeseburger ever made in an airport. I was silently thankful that I couldn't sit next to him on the plane.

Eventually, boarding began for our plane, and we were careful to stand well apart from each other. I wound up sitting towards the rear of the plane in a window seat, for which I was grateful. The two seats next to me were both taken by rumpled-looking middle-aged businessmen, one of whom asked a flight attendant for a scotch as soon as we were airborne. I ignored them both by promptly falling asleep, in spite of the large coffee… or perhaps because of everything I'd done to dilute it.

An unmarked car picked the three of us up from Dulles, and we didn't speak for the drive back to the Cradle. We cleared security and were escorted to a different conference room than the one for earlier today, then left there to wait. I sat up straight, even though I wanted nothing more than to fold my arms on the tabletop, drop my head into them and sleep. I hadn't really slept since… since I'd woken up to go running along the Sound. In the seat beside me, Garrett yawned hugely.

In fact, his mouth was still open when Fontana and his secretary opened the door and strode in, shutting it behind themselves with a snap. Automatically, the three of us stood at attention.

"Be seated," he told us, and we did. His secretary perched in a chair at the other end of the table and pulled a laptop from its case before sitting stiffly, poised to take notes.

Fontana, however, remained standing. "We've been in contact with Agent Farley, and he informed us only that you had information. We could not get more given that his line was not secure. So I gather you have the location of the attack?"

"Yes, sir, Agent Swan got it from Agrafena's daughter Dominika. Bella?" Desiree turned to me.

"Gratz University in Philadelphia, Purim," I stated. "We gather that Agent Farley will be receiving the details of the attack later today."

Fontana nodded. "We'll start securing the school immediately. Good work, Agent Swan. Given that it is still only about four in the morning, we'll just take Agent Johnson's transcript and ask you for any last impressions."

Desiree reached into her shoulder bag and withdrew the USB flash drive that had been assigned us for this op and handed it over, saying, "I have nothing to add beyond what's on the tape."

"Me neither," Garrett mumbled around another yawn.

Fontana turned to me. "Agent Swan?"

I opened my mouth, then shut it, biting my lip. Finally, I said, in a rush, "Agrafena's daughter–"

"We can't," he cut me off. "I know she was extremely helpful, but there's nothing we can do for her." He stared at me, his eyes hard. "She's just one person, Swan. Let her go."

I clenched my teeth. "Yes, sir."

"Good. Ms. Cartwright," he said, turning to his secretary, "have all their flights home been booked?"

Cartwright nodded and stood to hand us each a boarding pass. "You're all flying nonstop, and there's a car out front waiting for you now."

Desiree and I made to leave, but Garrett hesitated. "Sir…"

"Yes?" Fontana asked, looking back up.

"Will we be allowed to participate in the alleviation of the attack?"

Fontana considered all of us, noting the way that Desiree had removed her hand from the doorknob. "We'll see," he said brusquely, dismissing us.

Garrett opened his mouth again, but I took his elbow and silently pulled him out into the hallway. "Why'd you stop me?" he demanded once the door was closed.

"You already stated our interest," I reminded him. "Anything beyond that would be overkill." Desiree nodded.

Once we were in the car speeding back to Dulles, I pulled out my phone and called my dad. It rang three times before he answered, his voice bleary. "H'lo?"

"Hey, Daddy," I responded, my voice low so as not to interfere with the similar conversation that Desiree was having.

A rustle; I imagined him sitting up in bed and squinting at the clock. "Bells? You coming home?"

"Uh-huh." I read him my flight information off my boarding pass. "So I guess I'll land around five-thirty your time, okay?"

"I'll be waiting at the Light Rail station. Have a safe flight." He hesitated, and I knew he wanted to ask about the op. "Love you, honey."

"Love you too."

The driver let us off at the Departures gate of Desiree's flight, even though we were all flying home on different airlines. I quickly hugged them both goodbye, hefted my bag over my shoulder, and set off to find my own gate.

"Hello, Bells," my dad said warmly, wrapping me in his arms some ten hours later.

"Hi." I breathed in the familiar leathery smell of his cop jacket. "What time is it?"

"Around six. Have you eaten?"

I nodded. "Just get me home."

In the car, he knew better than to ask me any questions, but he kept glancing over at me, like he needed to reassure himself that I was really here. Once, I caught him looking, and his mustache twitched as he smiled. "Listen, I got Wilde to cover for me, but I need to get back to the station after I drop you off at home. Are you okay with that?"

"I'll be fine. I'm just going to eat some cereal or whatever and then go to sleep."

He grunted, and then there was another pause before he asked, "Do you need to see a doctor about anything?"

I shook my head. "I'm good." And he knew that was the most he could get out of me.

We wound through rush hour traffic silently after that, into the suburbs where Charlie had always lived. I stared out my window at the clapboard houses that never changed, reflecting that here was a city more peaceful than anything I had ever known before, even in Phoenix. I could get used to it.

Charlie stopped at the curb to let me out, and he had pulled away once the door shut. I trudged up the walk, so intent on digging through my bag for my keys that I didn't notice the Volvo parked across the street until someone got out of it and slammed the driver's side door shut. I spun, again reaching for my knife, forgetting that I didn't have it because of the whole airport thing.

But the person who strode towards me from that Volvo didn't appear overly threatening, just intent. Intent on what I did not know, but my stomach churned when I saw his face.

Edward did not stop until he was only a foot in front of me. "Bella."

"H-hey," I stammered. "What are you doing here?"

"I need to talk to you," he said, his eyes too intense now. He glanced down at the keys in my hand. "Can I come inside?"

I hesitated, biting my lip, then remembered that I could take him out if I needed to. "Sure," I answered slowly, walking back towards the front door. He followed me closely, but did not speak again as I inserted the key in the lock and turned it, disengaging the bolt. The door swung open.


	5. Chapter 5

Five

**Edward**

The first thing I noticed was the air of absolute exhaustion about her.

She was moving slowly, stiffly, like an old woman, as she stepped into her house and let he bag slide off her shoulder to the ground with an obvious _thunk_. Glancing over her shoulder at me, she asked through chapped lips, "I was going to get some cereal or whatever. Can I offer you anything?"

"No," I replied, not inclined to waste words with politeness.

Her eyebrows shot up at my tone. "Okay, then…. Come on."

I followed her careful steps down a hallway, surreptitiously taking in my surroundings as I did so. As we passed the living room, I noticed a progression of school pictures on the mantle: there she was with a rounder face, a brighter smile, and shorter hair in pigtails. Her face was thinner in the next one, but she still looked bright… "Spunky," Emmett would call her. But there weren't enough photos. I frowned when I noticed that the last one was what should have been her sixth grade portrait. And that brightness was gone.

The clink of a spoon in a cereal bowl returned me to myself, and I stepped forward to lean against the kitchen doorway and fold my arms as I watched her. Her back was to me, her hair bunched up messily with an elastic, that same Georgetown sweatshirt seeming to hang a little looser on her than before. The hems of her jeans were frayed, and she'd kicked off her tennis shoes, revealing black ankle socks.

I wondered to myself why I was cataloguing all this detail, and realized that it was because I was searching her for further injuries. But I couldn't see any new bruises to match the ones on her neck on the small amount of skin visible to me.

The cereal rattled into the bowl, then the milk splashed over it. Turning, she took her abbreviated meal to the table, then motioned me to a chair across from her. "Will you please sit down? You're making me nervous," she said, smiling.

"I doubt that," I muttered, but did as I was told. I'd noticed again that she'd made as if to reach for a weapon at her waist when I'd surprised her outside, but since then her heart rate and breathing had been normal. As she took the first bite of cereal, I leaned forward and crossed my arms on the tabletop. "Where were you?"

Chew, swallow, eyes down the entire time. When she could stall no longer, she looked back up at me. "I really don't feel like it's your business, but I wasn't feeling well after I got back from my run yesterday morning, and I had my dad take me to the doctor."

"And then he left you here alone?" I asked incredulously. "Even though you weren't feeling well."

Her eyebrows shot up. "One, I am a big girl, and two, he's a cop. He can't get someone to cover him just because his baby has a cold. And, I might add, I'm not alone _now_."

I ignored the demand for an explanation for my presence and instead told her, "You look fine to me."

Shrug. Lift spoon. Chew chew chew. Swallow. "That's what the doctor said. I guess I'm still not used to this whole constant rain thing."

But her face had flushed slightly, and her eyes darted once around the room. _Now_ I was making her nervous.

I leaned back in my seat, my eyes still on her face. "What's going on, Bella?" I asked softly.

But, in typical Bella fashion, she evaded the question. "Why are you here, Edward?"

"Because I was worried about you. And our project." My answer, at least, was ready.

Her head ducked down and she ate some more cereal; I nearly wrinkled my nose. "Honestly, that doesn't look very appetizing."

She glared at me. "So don't eat it."

"Bella, please." I hadn't noticed that I'd leaned back towards her. "Give me something."

She scowled and I thought she was going to spit some sarcastic comment, but after a moment, her face softened. "What's it going to take to convince you that there's nothing wrong with me? How do I prove to you that I'm really okay?"

Again, my hand acted as if of its own accord, and stretched out across the table. She hesitated a moment, then set down her spoon and placed her fingertips in my palm, and I folded my own fingers over them. "Let me spend time with you – give me time to convince myself." I whispered.

She laughed once. "I'll have to, won't I? We have that damn project."

"I wasn't talking about the project." And then, barely a split second later, my mind caught up with my mouth. Because she would hear more in my words than I had intended to give her. The resulting muscle spasm from my nerves – from my chagrin – made it seem like I was squeezing her hand.

But, oh, how her eyes lit up, though she tried to hide it. "You don't really want to go on a date with me," she told me, that cynical tone back in her voice.

_No – I _shouldn't_ want to go on a date with you. It's wrong. I'll hurt you. And when Rosalie finds out…._ "It bears consideration," I found myself grinning back at her, trying to soften the blow that would come when she realized that I hadn't meant it.

But I hadn't let her hand go.

She sighed and lowered her eyes to our clasped hands. "I'll make a deal with you, Cullen," she said, suddenly businesslike. "I will agree to go on one date with you – just as soon as we get the Kennedy project completed. I've already missed two days of school and I've gotten very little work done on my own. I don't think either of us need the distraction."

I laughed. "But maybe we need the incentive?" The end of the project was two weeks away. Plenty of time for her to forget, for me to find a way out of it. My gut almost twisted at the thought.

"Something like that." The corners of her lips twitched upwards as she took her hand back to finish her cereal. "Have you heard any more from your birth parents?"

"Wh – oh," I scrambled, remembering the cover story for my planned disappearance. "Um, I haven't, actually. I was a little disappointed."

"Oh, Edward." She set her spoon back down and stood up to come around the table to me. "I'm so sorry."

Frantically, I scrambled for the appropriate response to the pity in her eyes. I hadn't expected her to react like that. "I'm not, not really," I said as I, too, stood. "I've believed that they were dead for a long time, actually. I was more shocked than pleased when I got the call. Anyway, Carlisle and Esme have been my parents for a long time now."

"Still, though." Bella reached out and laid a hand on my forearm. I stared down at it, at the contrast of her white skin against my black sleeve, as she said, "If you ever need to talk, I'm here for you."

Finally, I looked up and met her eyes and for once saw nothing but honesty in them. She still hadn't removed her hand, and my other arm came up as if my fingers were straining to reach her face again. If they had, I don't know what would have happened, because the front door of her house opened without warning. "Bella? Where are you?" called a girl's voice, and Bella flinched back from me as if burned.

A boy's voice joined the girl's. "We didn't think you'd be back until later – oh."

I looked up and, for some reason, wasn't totally surprised to see little Alice Brandon standing at the entrance of the kitchen, Jasper Whitlock right behind her. But what I did not understand was the furious look he was shooting Bella. Alice just looked stunned. Glancing back at Bella, I saw that her back was suddenly straighter and that she was meeting Jasper's eyes straight on. "Hey, guys."

I could tell that it was on the tip of Jasper's tongue to ask exactly what I was doing there, so I said to Bella, "I'll see you tomorrow, then?"

She glanced back at me and appeared about to smile, but all she said was, "Okay. 'Bye."

The tension swirled around the room as I looked once more at the two newcomers, then silently left. Darkness was falling outside, and I hadn't noticed my hearing beginning to sharpen until the front door clicked shut behind me and I heard Jasper clearly as he demanded, "What the _fuck_, Bella?"

"Jazz…" Alice began, but he cut her off. There was a pounding that I guessed was his footsteps.

"We talked about this, didn't we? You know we can't get involved with any of them."

"We're not _involved_," Bella retorted. "We have a project to do together, and he was worried I was falling behind since I haven't been there for two days."

"Bullshit," Jasper snapped. "You were standing barely twelve inches apart. Have you slept with him?"

"Jasper!" shouted Bella and Alice at once, and I turned and put my hand back on the doorknob, prepared to charge right back in there and get up in his face myself. How dare he speak to her like that?

"That's none of your business, Jasper." Bella's tone was icy.

"The hell it isn't, if you pursue a relationship with him and he finds out, we're all fucked, and I want to know if you've slept with him."

That stopped me. What did he mean, they were all fucked? If I found out what?

When Bella spoke again, I could almost see her chin coming up as her eyes flashed. "I have not slept with him. I have no plans to do so. You're insulting."

"He's very sorry to imply anything even remotely negative about your character," said Alice quickly, anger lacing her words. "_Right, Jazz_?"

He didn't answer her question. "Whatever. I'll have to take your word for it. Anyway, while you were gone, we got a communication from headquarters."

"Yeah?" Bella sounded interested now. There was a scraping, and I imagined that all three of them had pulled out chairs at the kitchen table. However angry he'd made her, it seemed that he was abruptly forgiven.

I should leave. If any of them happened to look out the window and see my car… but I had to know what they were talking about. I could sense that I was close to solving the mystery of Bella's bruises, and I owed it to her to follow through.

Or that's what I told myself.

"Yeah," Alice answered Bella. "Although it's so shit stupid that I can't believe it. Maybe it's some sort of test to see if we can follow orders without bitching. Anyway… we've been ordered to look out for vampires."

I froze.

Bella's sigh was exasperated. "Oh, God. Garrett told me about that. He said we were calling it Operation Fang or something."

"Yep. Only that's the underground nickname, so don't say it to anybody in power." This was Jasper again, but now it sounded like he was choking back a laugh. "Apparently some op in Russia came up with something that was convincing enough to make people in charge believe in fairy tales. Powers that be think that, since there's so little sunlight here and it's a big city and all, it'll be something of a safe haven for the sunlight-fearing demons. I gather that New York and Fairbanks-slash-Anchorage got similar instructions."

"You think Hawaii did?" asked Alice.

"Doubt it," Bella replied. "I mean, yeah it rains a lot, but when it doesn't it's really sunny. So, what, we call all the local funeral homes and be all, _oh, hey, do any of your caskets get flung open in the middle of the night so their occupants can walk around_?"

Alice laughed. "Nah. If I was a vampire, I'd keep my coffin in my underground lair somewhere. Don't want to risk the funeral director trying to drop some old dead guy in there with me."

"So… we go looking for underground lairs, then. I'm so sorry, can I make you guys coffee or something?"

As Alice and Jasper agreed, and the sounds of Bella switching on the coffee maker slid through the walls of the house, I felt the cold continue to seep into my body, hardening my skin, strengthening my muscles, as the night descended around the house. Cars were easing up the street, the adult humans returning from their work days. Soon, somebody would notice me standing motionless on the front porch of the Chief of Police's house. I had to leave.

_I had to leave_. We all had to leave. I had to leave her.

I winced. _Her._ When had she become a concern in my life? Especially since she was apparently working for someone who had instructed her to seek out and kill my family and myself.

Jasper asked if he could use the restroom, and Bella must have nodded, because I then heard his footsteps coming back down the hallway before he went upstairs. As soon as he was gone, a chair again scraped across the tiles in the kitchen. "Bella?" whispered Alice's voice.

"Yeah?"

"Edward Cullen."

A pause, a sigh. Against my better judgement, I leaned closer to the door. "What about him?"

Alice's question was blunt. "Are you falling for him?"

Another pause, but this one was different, charged somehow. I stopped breathing, this new question somehow driving the other knowledge I'd gained from my mind. "I don't know, Alice. I just…"

"Jasper told me you said Cullen was hot when you guys were driving to the airport this past weekend. And now he's in your house, looking like he'd really just love to kiss you. I think you _do_ know."

"It's like…" started Bella. "I look at you and Jasper, Alice, at how happy the two of you are together, and I have to wonder if I'm going to live long enough to find something like that."

"What we have isn't perfect, sweetie."

"But you still have it. That's my point. I have no one. And then I moved here, and I met him, and I stopped being able to think straight all the time. Like, I was out running along the Sound yesterday morning and I ran into him. We talked for a little, and he's honestly worried about the neck bruises I got during training last weekend. He put his hand on my cheek. And I felt… like suddenly my lips were swollen, and I couldn't really breathe right."

"Some people call that arousal." I heard the smile in Alice's voice.

"Shut up, I wasn't wet. Just breathless." Bella exhaled again. "But Jasper's right, isn't he? If I get involved with Edward, or with any civilian, we're all fucked." She hesitated, then spoke very quickly. "Which is a problem, considering that I agreed to go out with him once we get Berlenbach's project done."

"_Bella_," Alice groaned. "Well, you're just going to have to stand him up."

"You were just saying–"

"I was just saying that I think you're falling for him. What I was _about_ to say was that you have to forget about him. You can't trust him. We can't trust him. We can't trust anybody."

The sound of Jasper coming back down the stairs reached me next, and I finally took that as my cue to leave. I walked down Bella's lawn and back across the street to my car in a daze, struggling to process everything I'd heard.

Someone, somewhere, knew that there were vampires in Seattle. Three high school students were charged with finding out those vampires. Those three high school students, who appeared to have nothing to do with each other in public, were part of some sort of… pact. This pact relied on secrecy to the extent of forbidding any sort of relationship with outsiders and revealing any sort of relationship with each other. A young blonde woman who may or may not have had anything to do with those three high school students had appeared at my mother's place of work last week and had followed her around the city.

Bella Swan had said that I was hot. Bella Swan had become breathless at my touch yesterday morning.

I got back into my car, taking some simple pleasure at the quiet purr of the engine as I guided it up the street and around the corner. But I did not go home. Instead, I drove out of the city, finding the highway, somehow managing to feel alone even surrounded by ten lanes of traffic.

Even if the three people charged with discovering us did not believe in the existence of vampires, the fact remained that somebody did, and this _somebody_ gave orders that apparently had to be followed at all costs.

What had following those orders cost Bella in the past? She had gained the bruises on her neck from some sort of training.

Would it arouse her suspicions if I avoided her? Probably. I would have to revert to my original plan of finishing this project and then having done with her. For she was now an even bigger risk to my family than I'd previously believed.

_My family_. Should I tell them what I had learned? I should tell them. But then they would want to leave. And Bella would grow suspicious if we left.

Damn it, I didn't know what to think anymore. All I could do was watch her very carefully for a while, and see if she was beginning to come close to the truth. I had to keep her from that truth. But I could never be with her, not the way I wanted.

Because that was what it came down to, wasn't it? I wanted to be with her. And now I couldn't.

I mentally shook myself and turned my car back towards home. I wouldn't have been able to be with her anyway. Jasper was right, I was a sunlight-fearing demon.

I had pulled into the garage, my car taking its place between Esme's and Rosalie's, before one other part of what I'd overheard crept back into my mind. What had Bella said? _I have to wonder if I'm going to live long enough to find something like that._ But she was only seventeen. Of course she was going to live long enough, unless… my God, was she in such constant danger?

As if in a daze, I walked back into the house and made straight for the stairs.

"Edward?"

Slowly, I turned towards my father's voice. "Yes."

"Where have you been?" Carlisle asked, but he wasn't accusatory, simply curious. Whatever he saw in my face, however, changed his own expression to one of concern, for moments later he was on his feet, the medical journal he'd been reading discarded on the table beside his armchair. "Son, what's wrong? What's happened?"

I stared at him for a moment, knowing that the decision I made now would change everything. I could save us all, right now, and in doing so condemn Bella to death – because I knew Rosalie would ask for Bella's head on a plate when she heard. Or I could protect Bella, secure my place in her life, and subject my family to the possibility of being discovered.

My mouth opened.

"Nothing happened."

And then I turned my back on my father and went upstairs.

**Bella**

When I went running the next day, my time was horrible, but that usually happened after I got home from an op. I made sure to run along the Sound, but I did not see Edward again.

Just as well. I hadn't really had time to think about the instructions that Alice and Jasper had brought me yesterday, given that once they finally left I'd tried to do some catch-up homework and then fallen asleep on the couch.

So, the agency really was on a vampire hunt. What was next? Witches? Well, they had to have had some good reason for ordering it; otherwise, it would be a waste of time and money and manpower. I wondered if Fontana had been in on the decision to use junior agents, or if that choice had been made over his head.

Okay, where was Buffy the Vampire Slayer when I needed her? I had no idea how to go about tracking a vampire. And, I noted wryly, the agency hadn't sent us any wooden stakes, or garlic, or crucifixes. Maybe I should start wearing my grandmother's crucifix necklace. Nah. Couldn't disrespect her memory like that.

I sighed as I turned onto my own street, knowing that we would have to take the orders seriously, at least for the time being. I had a feeling that those orders had been so vague because the agency themselves did not really know what we were supposed to be looking for.

I ate quickly and was out the door before my father had even come downstairs. I stopped at one of those accessory stores that markets specifically to teenagers and made one purchase, glad that they were open this early. As I slipped my new acquisition on and got my car started again, I wondered idly if the rules about being invited into a house meant anything in the real world. Whatever; I hadn't invited anyone into Charlie's house except Alice and Jasper… and Edward.

Thank goodness I was at a red light; I might have had an accident. _Could Edward be_…

He definitely went out of his way to avoid everyone but his brother and sister. I'd never seen him eat anything at lunch. He had more knowledge than anyone I'd ever met outside the agency about United States history. He was beyond handsome; he was _beautiful_. And… in order for him to notice the bruises on my neck, he'd have to be staring at my neck in the first place.

I shook myself as the light turned green; I was being stupid. This whole situation was stupid. It would blow over sooner or later, anyway.

The first half of my school day was uneventful, aside from my receiving a few compliments on the purchase I'd made this morning. I accepted them all quietly, because the only real reactions I cared about were to be found in my history class.

And they didn't disappoint. I cleared my throat when I walked into Berlenbach's room after lunch, and Alice and Jasper, both of whom were already seated, looked up on my entrance. Jasper just grinned, but Alice snorted and had to clap a hand over her mouth when she saw the gaudy black Gothic cross hanging from a choker of black silk and lace around my neck. Surreptitiously winking at her, I took my seat.

"Quiet, you rabble," Berlenbach said over the class as the bell rang. "Don't unpack your things. We're going to the library today so that you people can get some work done on my project – a project that, may I remind you, is due in two weeks. So," he clapped his hands together, "you will pretend to research, and I will pretend to grade papers for an hour. Sound good?"

There was some general laughter and a murmur of assent as we all stood up again. I shouldered my bag and looked around for Edward, still a little nervous given the thought I'd had on the way in this morning.

But he came to me. "Hello, Bella."

I smiled up at him and said "Hi" back, but he wasn't looking at my eyes. Rather, his gaze was fixed on my new choker, and a slight frown creased his forehead. Suddenly, the suspicions that I'd beat down repeatedly surged to the surface, and for a moment, I was truly afraid of him.

But then he met my eyes, and I felt… if not safe (because I never felt truly safe), then cared for. He had been concerned about my bruises, after all.

"Shall we?" I asked brightly, shouldering my bag again. He nodded wordlessly and we joined the crush of people leaving the room.

After only a few steps, though, the chatter of those around us made our own silence seem that much more awkward. And he was being very careful to maintain at least a twelve-inch separation from me. My training in reading body language told me that either I smelled bad or I made him nervous. I decided to test him out.

"You know, I used deodorant this morning."

Edward glanced at me, his eyebrows lifting just a little. "I'm sorry?"

"Yeah, I'm all personal-hygiened up. So you don't need to ignore me."

With that, he finally laughed. The sound was almost like velvet. "I'm sorry," he apologized again. "I didn't mean to be rude."

"S'okay," I answered, trying to keep my breezy tone from earlier, even if the way he had drifted closer to me without actually _looking _at me was doing strange things to my skin. "So…"

"So…" he prompted; the corner of his lips twitched up. "Are you feeling better?"

"Mm-hmm," I hummed in reply. "Still a little tired, but I can deal with that. And I have a very unattractive pile of make-up work accumulating. Did you go running this morning?"

Almost instantly, I could see his guard go up again. "Yes. But I like to take different routes every day. I'm sure you can understand that – it gets dull doing the same thing over and over for too long."

I forced a laugh, then almost stumbled forward as someone bumped into me from behind. I looked up, ready to snap at whomever the klutz was, but it died on my lips when I saw Jasper's angry eyes glaring into mine. I coolly returned his look for a few seconds, reminding myself that I was doing nothing wrong, and that he, in fact, had to have extended contact with his own partner for this project. He brushed ahead and I watched him go, silently wondering why he was so insistent on my not talking to Edward.

But when I looked up at the boy in question, he too was watching Jasper's disappearing figure. "He really doesn't like me, does he?" Edward asked, his tone conversational.

I shrugged, trying to play it off. "I don't really know. I'm not that close to him."

"Really? Because he walked into your house yesterday without needing to knock." Edward's eyebrows lifted.

"Because I was stupid and left the door unlocked after we went in," I retorted, my eyes daring him to contradict me. Damn him, he did.

"The polite thing to do would still have been to knock. What did he and Alice want, anyway?"

I couldn't continue to be evasive; I knew that. It looked like exactly what it was – me trying to dodge his questions. I had to make it seem normal. "I guess Alice was walking home or something and Jasper picked her up, just in time to have the GPS on his phone die. So they couldn't find their way to her house." I winced as I said the words. Anybody could tell that was a crock of shit.

Edward raised his eyebrows again but didn't comment. And that, of course, made it worse.

The agency should just fire me on the spot. Because apparently, I failed at this whole covert thing.

We were one of the last pairs to get to the library, and most of the tables were filled up; in fact, there were not two open seats next to each other anywhere in the room. "What now?"

Edward shrugged, apparently determined to be unhelpful.

Any girl can tell you one thing, whether or not she's a CIA agent. When it comes to boys, the best defense is a good offense. So I hitched my bag higher up on my shoulder, jerked my head towards the corner, and ordered, "Come on, then."

Without looking to see if he was following me, I wound my way around the chair legs and people legs and backpacks that littered the floor between the tables until we had rounded the corner into the rows of shelves that made up the reference section of the library.

One pair had already had my same idea. Brynn and Triss were sitting side by side, leaning up against a row of encyclopedias; Triss had a volume open on her lap while Brynn took notes. I led Edward a little farther down from them, out of earshot, and then sat cross-legged, pulling my notebook out of my bag. I made sure I had everything settled before I looked up at him. "Well?"

He was staring at me wordlessly, still standing still a good five feet down the row from me. I could see Triss and Brynn both eyeing his backside appreciatively, and a little flame leapt up in my chest at the sight. It wasn't exactly a pleasant feeling.

Then Edward shrugged, and his pack landed on the floor across the aisle from me. More fluidly than I had ever seen any guy ever move before (and I'd worked with guys whose lives depended on their ability to move fluidly), he seated himself next to his pack so that he was facing me, and extended one leg out, bending the other and planting his foot on the floor. He was so tall that the toe of his shoe was nearly level with my hip. "Are you happy now?" he asked. He was still staring at me straight on, and I again noticed the beautifully strange color of his eyes.

There were so many ways to answer that question, and I knew that none of them were acceptable, either in terms of my own personal well-being or in terms of my connection to the agency… not when he looked at me like that. So, I just held his eyes for a moment, then shrugged. "Sure. I brought those books we checked out from the city library last week. The marked pages are stuff I think we should reference in the paper." Once I'd dug out the first of the three books, I handed it to him, being very careful not to let my fingertips brush his. I didn't dare. Automatically, nervously, I glanced around for Jasper, and was relieved when I didn't see him anywhere. He and his partner must've been at one of the tables.

Edward was flipping through the book. "Why are some of the Post-Its different colors?"

"Oh – the pink ones are some stuff I think should go just in the presentation. I don't want it to be too repetitive, you know? I mean, the presentation and the paper. Since Berlenbach is grading them both. Like, yeah, some of our information should overlap so it looks like we did the project together, but…" he was watching me babble, his face expressionless, and I could feel the blush creeping up my neck. "I'm just going to shut up right about now."

To my surprise, he closed the book and stood again. I was about to ask him where he was going when he moved so that he was now sitting beside me, albeit with my bag between us. Slowly, I turned to face him, expecting his eyes to still be on me. Instead, he was looking at the open notebook in my lap. "Can I see what you've written so far?" he asked abruptly.

It was that change in tone that returned me to myself. "Only if you show me what _you_ have too," I retorted. "I'm not your secretary."

Now he was finally smiling, but it was like he found my childish petulance amusing. I bit my tongue so as not to spit something vile at him. Who did he think he was, barging into my life and asking questions and treating me like I was only writing this paper for his benefit? Screw him.

_You wish_, whispered a voice in my head. I silenced it roughly.

A spotless black folder, stocked with about half a dozen sheets of paper with meticulously neat typing on them, landed in my lap and I picked it up like it might be a bomb before handing him my own haphazardly stapled papers. We sat in silence as I skimmed his part of the paper, noting as I did the elevated diction; it felt more like some of the research reports I'd written for the agency than a high school assignment. _Hmm_. I filed that observation away for further study.

To my surprise, Edward had ascribed wholly to the Oswald theory; there was absolutely no mention of any other conspiracies. When I looked up, I saw that he'd already finished reading my part and was, once again, watching me. "What?" I snapped.

"Yours is solid." It was almost a compliment. "But I thought that you might want to handle debunking the Grassy Knoll theory and the others – since you seem to be so passionate in your belief that Oswald was the only shooter."

I eyed him, trying to figure out whether or not I was being made fun of. When a smile ghosted over his face, I sighed. "You know, your mood swings kind of give me whiplash."

"Forgive me. It's not intentional." His glance drifted to my neck again, like he was checking for the whiplash himself.

Right then, I decided to do something. I owed it to myself, and I owed it to him, to put these damn suspicions to rest as quickly as possible. If the agency was really going to go all-out in its attempts to turn me into a paranoid, delusional freak, then I would combat it in any way that I could. And that included proving the innocence of the boy beside me.

They could order me to stifle the flutterings I was beginning to feel in my chest whenever he looked at me. They could coerce me into destroying any chance I could have of a relationship with him. But they would not make me believe him a monster. I refused to let them do that to me.

Casually, so casually, I gathered my hair in my hands, lifting it above my neck and sliding the elastic off my wrist in order to secure it in place. His eyes were caught by my movement, and he once again glanced at my choker – which now seemed a ridiculously childish response to the agency's directive. I tied my hair up and was ready to drop my hands when I noticed that he had not yet looked away from the cross. And something else had caught his attention.

My fingertips were lingering by my carotid artery. His eyes were so intense, I swear he could see the movement of the blood within me. Instinctual fear flooded through me, even as a small part of my mind acknowledged that the CIA deserved congratulations. They had indeed found the best way of driving me away from Edward Cullen. The boy who was still fixated on my throat.

Almost imperceptibly, he swallowed hard.

**Edward**

Slowly, Bella lowered her hands from her throat, and I was grateful. Quietly, those extremities came to rest in her lap, where she folded them neatly. When I looked back at her face, she was gazing down, watching her fingertips entwine again and again, as if the digits belonged to someone else. Shaking off the momentary haze I'd sunk into when she lifted her hair and sent a wave of her breathtaking scent directly at me, I cleared my throat to ask, "Bella? Are you all right?"

She did not meet my gaze, but she did flush gently. I had to beat down the instinct to lean towards her, to run my nose along the slender white column of her throat, inhaling her essence as I went. My throat was tightening again, my muscles tensing. _No. Not this girl_.

"I'm fine."

The words were a whisper, and her sudden stillness almost made me believe she had turned to stone. Were it not for the steady rise and fall of her chest with her breathing – in fact, her breathing seemed a little faster than normal – I might almost have believed she had become one like me.

I wanted to slip a finger under her chin and tilt her face up so that my eyes could find her again. But I knew better than to touch her. So instead, I simply waited patiently.

For nearly another two minutes, her gaze remained down, studying her fingertips as if they were the most fascinating things in the world. Her breathing returned to normal, although I did notice a little crease appearing between her eyebrows. For the first time, I realize just how much paler she has gotten since coming to Seattle. Not paler, exactly – for she was so very fair-skinned to begin with – but it was true that the veins at her temples and in her throat were a little more visible than they had been before.

When her head did snap up, the motion was sharper than I had expected, and she didn't immediately turn to me as I had hoped she would. Rather, she checked the clock before biting down on her lower lip, as if she was unaware of the motion. "So we did a pretty good job of wasting this period, didn't we?" she asked, and it took me a moment to ascertain what she was talking about.

"Oh. I guess we did, yes." Confusion welled up in me. Why this change, why the sudden briskness in her manner? And why would she not look at me? "But we did read each other's part of the essay. Yours was very good, again. If you want to handle the transitions between the two pieces, I think you should."

Bella opened the notebook on the floor beside her and turned to what I guessed was a rough draft of her part of the paper. "Well, thanks for that. But it looks like we're not getting anything else done today. Like, there's barely fifteen minutes left in class."

I settled back against the bookshelf, her every movement still holding my attention. "So shall we just sit here in silence, then?" I teased her, trying to coax her into looking at me again. Slowly, I was becoming aware of a new tension threading through the air, somehow both separating us and binding us together. I didn't understand it.

"We can talk," she allowed generously, running a finger down my paper in her lap. But she didn't propose any topics of conversation. I had to know what she was thinking.

"All right. What would you like to talk about? And remember, our time is ticking on." I made myself smile.

Abruptly, her eyes were back on mine, but they were narrowed slightly, as if she was trying to see through me. Her expression was closed off, almost hostile. "Tell me about your family?"

The air hissed through my teeth as I remembered the conversation I'd overheard on her porch last night. _She knew_. No, she couldn't know. She was still sitting here, next to me. If she knew, surely she'd be running from me, screaming as she went. But the look on her face…

Although I had been unable to tell Carlisle and the others about the danger to us, I could at least protect them from that danger now, to the best of my ability. And so I chose my response to Bella's question very carefully. "Well, you know we're not really related, any of us," I began. "Actually, I take that back. Rosalie is – she's Carlisle's niece, orphaned really young, and she's been with him ever since. Emmett and I are both foster kids."

Bella cocked her head to the side, curious. "But Rosalie and Emmett are… together, right?"

I laughed, trying to make it sound effortless. "Yes, nobody was planning it that way. We don't have a problem with it, but some of the administration here did when they found out."

"It's none of their damn business," Bella snorted, and for some reason, I didn't think that reaction was artifice. "I hope your parents told them off."

"Esme was wonderful," I smiled at the memory. "She said they were both eighteen, consenting adults, and her husband the doctor knew well enough how to promote safe sex. Then she walked out of the principal's office without looking back. Emmett said they had to work to catch up with her."

Bella laughed, and as I heard it, I realized it was the first time I had ever heard her laugh in full. The sound wasn't like tinkling bells or any of that other romantic drivel one reads about… it was lovelier. For some reason, it called to mind a gentle rain falling on grass. That serene, that uncomplicated. I had a feeling that it was one of the only uncomplicated things about this very enigmatic girl. "She sounds great."

"She is," I agreed. "I think you'd like her."

I hadn't meant anything more by my comment than simple polite conversation, but I suddenly found myself thinking of how Esme and Bella really _would_ react to each other. Bella would love Esme, because no one could help loving Esme… if she didn't know what Esme really was. And what would Esme think of this troubling human who saw too much?

"Is it ever weird, though?" Unconsciously, Bella had shifted with our conversation so that her body was canted towards me, her knees now folded to her side, her shoulder against the bookshelves. The mistrustful expression had left her face now.

"Is what ever weird?" I shook myself out of my brief reverie.

"Watching Emmett and Rosalie together. Not like–" she made air quotes with her fingertips and dropped her voice in what I could only assume was a horrible imitation of mine "–_Oh, my brother and sister are making out with each other and it's perverted _– but like… do you ever feel jealous?"

That was another question I hadn't been expecting, and I had to think a moment before I could answer it. Suddenly, I remembered what she had said to Alice yesterday: "_I look at you and Jasper, Alice, at how happy the two of you are together, and I have to wonder if I'm going to live long enough to find something like that_." Well, I had lived too many lifetimes to count now, and I still hadn't found anything close to a love like that.

But of course I couldn't say any of that to Bella. "Not often," I said, the words coming slowly as I turned to look off into the middle distance. "But there are times when I envy them… the relationship. But I don't know exactly what it is I'm envying."

"Wait, really?" Bella's spine straightened a little. "So you've never had a girlfriend?"

I laughed once. "Never. Nothing even close. I don't date."

"Oh."

That was it, one syllable. I looked back at her and saw that her eyes were down again, her fingers once more entwined. "Bella?"

"Um, nothing." She started packing up, although we still had a good five minutes until the bell. She cleared her throat, and her next words were cynical. "That's just good to know, I guess."

It was the return of that sardonic tone I was so used to hearing in her voice that made me realize what she would have heard in my words. After all, she had used that same tone with me when I was in her kitchen yesterday – "_You don't really want to go on a date with me_," she had said while I held her hand.

I exhaled slowly, knowing that I had here the perfect chance to put the proper distance back between us. But I didn't want to. I couldn't.

I did not want to be distant from Bella Swan. I had to keep her close, I told myself, so I could monitor her hunt for vampires. I had to know what she knew.

That, however, was only a very small part of the weight that had dropped into my gut. I did not like to break promises, even promises I should never have made. And I wanted to be normal, even if it was only for a few hours. I wanted to be human, and take a human girl out on a human date. I wanted to pretend, however briefly, that I had the option of finding what Rosalie and Emmett or Carlisle and Esme had.

But there was more.

I wanted to spend time with her. That was what it all came down to.

I had already decided to go to hell once this week. Why not finish the journey?

My hand reached out and gently wrapped around her wrist. She stared down at it, then up at my face, surprise and something else I couldn't identify in her eyes. I could feel her pulse through the soft skin cradled in my palm. "But I don't forget that I'm taking you out after we finish this project," I said, my voice low. Did she realize even a small part of what I was risking in this? I hoped not.

Her lips twitched up, and she was almost smiling at me. No sarcasm. "So we're still on?"

"We are. But we need to finish this damn thing," I told her, laughing slightly. Because she was sending herself to hell, too. Hadn't that little Alice girl told her specifically to break her date with me? Now Bella was defying whatever external power controlled _her_ life, as well.

Well, there was something to be said for having things in common.

Slowly, I lifted my hand from hers. "Do you have time to work this weekend?"

Biting her lower lip again, she responded, "Yes, but I think that's too long to go without working – we do have a deadline coming up. But I don't have anything planned after school all week. We can… go to the library again? Oh, but we mostly have the presentation left to work on, don't we?"

I shrugged. "We can get it started in the library, but obviously the rehearsals will have to be done elsewhere. So, today? At three?"

She nodded slowly, but her smile lit her whole face.

"All right, then." I helped her to her feet as the bell rang. "It's a date."

Bella flashed me one more smile before she started for the door. "Not yet, it's not."

I had to laugh to keep the horror at my actions from consuming me. A human girl was flirting with me. I was not only allowing it; I was enjoying it. Even knowing what it could cost me and my family… and it could cost her life. I refused to think about any of that as I watched the way her hips moved as she exited the school library.

When I turned to gather my own things, though, someone was observing me from across the library. Alice Brandon held my gaze for just a moment, her eyes opaque, before slowly turning away.

I detoured to my locker before my next class to switch out a book, and I happened to glance out a window at the end of the first-floor hall where it was located when I was finished. Bella was standing alone, just outside a side doorway of the school, about to be late for her last class, I was certain. But she had a contemplative look on her face, and her arms were folded tightly across her chest, securing her books to her body, her bag slung across her shoulder. She was staring across the sodden parking lot at the busy street, and something about her compelled me to keep watching. The warning bell rang, and neither she nor I moved.

I could not explain what she did next, but I somehow understood that she was making a choice in doing it. Shifting her books so that she was holding them in only one arm, she reached her free hand up to the back of her neck and I saw the ribbon-and-chain of her choker go slack. The black cross glinted dully.

She removed the ridiculous piece from her neck and flung it in the gutter, watching it for just a moment before she turned and went back inside. Only moments later, the fast-flowing water had swallowed it up and it was gone.


	6. Chapter 6

**Hey, guys, I know it's been a while, and I also don't do chapter notes, so... yeah. Anyway, I realized a few days ago that this story wasn't going where I thought it was (basically, what I thought was going to be the ending was about the halfway point), so the updates might be a little slow for a while as I get all the kinks worked out. But thank you for sticking with me!**

**Six**

**Bella**

Jasper's arm was tightening around my windpipe, and I could feel the blood becoming trapped in my face. My feet kicked in midair; at six-foot-three, he could easily lift my five-foot-four self off the ground as he strangled me. I tried to drive my elbow into his abs, but he flexed, leaning his midsection away from me. Trying to take advantage of the movement of his center of gravity, I wriggled, but he simply adjusted his feet and tightened his hold. "Tap out, girl," he hissed into my ear. "It's over."

But it wasn't. I had only tapped out once in my life, when I had been a Class Eight, and then I had been held down by a twenty-two-year-old guy at least twice as heavy as I was. Knowing that Jasper's feet would be set shoulder-width apart, I horse-kicked backwards and up, getting him where it hurt.

With a grunt he folded upon himself, taking me with him as he fell to the coarse rubber mat, but his hold was much weaker now. Jerking myself free, I scrambled up, eyeing the ball he'd curled up into, a hand cupping himself. I threw myself back down on him, forcing him to lie flat on his stomach so that the injured part of his body was squished into the floor, drove a knee into his spine, and hooked my own arm around his neck. "_You_ tap out."

"Bloody hell," he grunted, trying to arch his back and flip me, but I didn't budge. "You cheated."

I dug my knee in harder. "And I'm sure that when you're out there in the Real World and some Afghan insurgent or whatever kicks you in the happy sacks, you're gonna say the same thing, and he'll apologize and let you up," I taunted. "Tap the hell out. You're dead anyway. You know I could snap your neck."

"Fine." He held out two fingers and tapped them on the mat below us, and I slid off his back, letting him up. He stood but braced his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath while I wiped my sweaty forehead on the sleeve of my regulation T-shirt. In the corner, Alice began a slow-clap, trying to fight down her laughter.

"Fuck you," Jasper shot at his girlfriend, and I laughed.

Now Alice giggled out loud, letting her hands fall to her sides. "I'm sorry. It's just… Bella, you're what, one-twenty? Ish? And you just took out…."

"You're not getting laid for the next two weeks," Jasper cut her off.

"Oh, sweetie," Alice said tenderly, walking over to him and cradling his face in her hands. "Even if I hadn't pissed you off, I wouldn't be getting laid for the next two weeks. 'Cause my friend just damaged your laying apparatus."

I snorted and fell back so that I was resting on the floor while Jasper cursed again.

We were in the finished basement at Alice's house, which her parents had converted into a gym. Alice said that she had long ago maxed out the treadmill, dumbbells, and rowing machine present, but she, Jasper, and Irina had held occasional sparring practice on the stretch of blue mats that lined the far wall of the room. It was my first time here with the two of them, but already we'd been working for over two hours. I had come straight here from the library with Edward that Thursday, and Jasper had arrived not long afterward.

The fluorescent lights in the ceiling were too bright, and I threw an arm over my eyes to block them out. Alice said, with the laughter still in her voice, "So how's the vampire hunt going for everybody?"

I was glad my face was already half-covered. I didn't want to talk about vampires. I didn't want to talk about what I thought I'd seen in Edward's eyes yesterday. I was glad when Jasper answered.

"Nothing," he scoffed. "Of course it's nothing. The whole thing is a crock of shit. Like, they can't even tell us what we're looking for, 'cause they don't know, 'cause fucking vampires don't exist."

Maybe I should just ask Edward… after all, we were beginning to trust each other.

And trusting a civilian, especially one whom we were fully aware was a potential threat, was how agents always fell. Every single time, it was trusting the wrong person. Operations could fail and lives could be put at risk. Trusting Edward Cullen, vampire or no, was a stunt that I could not afford to pull.

"What about you, Alice?" Jasper asked, and I felt the rubber mat next to me lower slightly as he seated himself beside me. "You find any fanged beasts lately?"

"Other than you?"

"Oh, God," I groaned.

"Bella, shut up while I flirt with my boyfriend. Anyway, I have not. Like you said, Jazz, we don't know where to start looking. Bella?"

I got up and went over to where I'd piled my school stuff and street clothes along the wall. "You told me not to talk while you were flirting with your boyfriend," I stalled, taking a sip of water, hoping it sounded like a joke.

When I turned back around, Alice had waved her hand impatiently. "Yeah, but I'm done now. So?"

Biting my lip, I promised myself that lying to my teammates was something that I would never do again. But I couldn't tell them my suspicions about Edward and his family. "Nothing. Have any of the other alerted stations got anything that we know of? Aside from that text sent out this afternoon?"

Jasper shrugged and motioned for me to toss him the water bottle. "You saw that Anchorage thinks they got something – apparently there were these two random Mexican-looking people – they called each other Carmen and Eleazar or something – who showed up in town and bought this big-ass ranch that's like forty miles away from the nearest town and has been abandoned for years. Local gossip says they don't even come in to town to shop for groceries–"

"So someone called witch?" I asked incredulously. "That's ridiculous."

"That's what Anchorage thought too," said Jasper, rolling my bottle back towards me. "But they reported it all the same, and now those two people are being monitored. The Anchorage team has never even seen them; they were just reporting gossip. And that, ladies, is what the CIA has been reduced to."

"Wonderful." Alice huffed.

We all sat quietly for a few moments before Jasper moved on to his favorite topic of discussion. "So, Bella, how's your history project going?"

Alice looked down at the towel she had used earlier to mop the sweat from her neck as I glared at Jasper. "Fine, thanks. How's yours?"

"Can't complain. How's Edward?"

"We really gonna do this, Jasper?" I sighed. I was hoping that he couldn't tell from anything in my face or voice that, productivity aside, Edward and I had really paid very little attention to our project this afternoon. While Wednesday afternoon had been so successful that we'd not only finished our respective parts of the paper but had also begun to plan the entire presentation, we'd only worked for maybe half an hour today before we'd begun talking. Maybe the way we spoke to each other was unnatural, given that we'd barely met, but I didn't mind. But as I reviewed our conversation in my head, I was struck by the realization that he hadn't given me any time to ask questions of my own. Had that been intentional? I was sure it had been.

It was just so hard to reconcile this boy – this boy who stared at me like I was the single most interesting part of his world, who listened to every word I said like it was golden – with the image of a vampire that a generation of horror films, coupled with Anne Rice, had forced into my head. I wasn't sure if I believed it or not, actually. I knew I didn't _want_ to believe it, but I had been trained to keep my emotions and my deductions entirely separate.

Why was that suddenly so hard for me?

"We're really gonna do this," Jasper replied, returning me to the present. "I need to know if Alice and I are in any danger of being compromised."

"I wouldn't let that happen."

He studied my face for a moment, and whatever he saw there must have reassured him because he said, "Okay, I believe that. You have a reputation around the Cradle. We know you're one of the best."

"Thanks, I guess." Coming from a pavement artist, I wasn't sure quite what that compliment was worth.

To my surprise, the next person who spoke was Alice. "But what we don't know," she began quietly, "is if you would be so successful at keeping yourself out of danger. I'm worried about you."

"You don't need to worry about me."

"Someone has to," she snapped back, "since you seem morally opposed to worrying about yourself."

I scowled at her. "What danger, exactly, do you think I'm in?"

"Of falling in love with that boy."

My mouth fell open, and all I could do was stare at her. She did not look away, but the intensity was slowly draining out of her face to be replaced by something that looked shockingly like pity.

Jasper ran a hand over his face. "Shit."

"Um, yeah. Hold on." I held up both my hands. "I spoke to him for the first time, what, one week ago?"

"I don't think there's a grace period," Alice told me gently. I ignored her, but she kept talking. "Do you honestly not see the way he looks at you? When we were leaving the school library at the end of Berlenbach's class yesterday, he watched you walk away. Looked like he wanted to follow you – no joke. And I caught his eye when he finally turned away from you, and he looked scared."

That got my attention. "Scared of what?" I didn't bother to wonder if she was sure about the emotion. The girl was an undercover operator, for God's sake; her missions relied on her being able to read people.

Alice exhaled deeply; from the corner of my eye, I could see Jasper watching her intently as well. "Of you. Of caring about you. Of losing you. Take your pick. But the boy's afraid of something."

I raised my hand and then dropped them to my sides. "What does that have to do with me, Alice? I can promise you that I'm not in love with Edward. Okay, he's hot and everything, but I don't even know him." I could feel the flush creeping up my face at my denial of him, and I prayed that they didn't pick up on it. "That aside, what do you want me to do about it if he's developing a crush on me? Take him out?"

"Let's not be morbid," she smiled. "But you are going to have to get some distance if you expect to maintain your cover. Just tell yourself that all you're missing is a possibility."

It was that word, '_possibility_,' that brought out the sudden bout of anger. "How many fucking possibilities am I going to miss out on, Alice?" I demanded, shouting now. "How many chances to make something out of my life, to mean something to somebody else? Explain to me how a contract my parents signed when I was eleven fucking years old that I didn't understand and could never undo somehow cost me any chance of having the privilege of deciding what I want?"

A ringing silence followed my outburst; Jasper was on his feet again. Alice's eyes were wide and shocked.

"My God," she whispered. "You really are a goner."

My mouth opened again, this time in protest, but Jasper spoke before I could get the words out.

"This was easier when I thought you just wanted to fuck him." He was looking at me sadly.

"I don't," I said impatiently. "And I'm not in love with him. I am not going to fall in love with him. I appreciate your concern, both of you, but this conversation is now over." Damn people in relationships who thought that they were somehow the last authority on the lives of all their single friends. I really didn't need this shit, especially not from them.

After examining me for another few seconds, Alice nodded once. "Okay, then. You're both welcome to stay for dinner. Mom and Dad won't mind." Her parents knew about her relationship with Jasper, as did his. Aside from those four and the CIA, it was a secret from the world. Although maybe Edward Cullen would be able to guess after what he saw at my house on Tuesday night.

Jasper accepted the invitation, but I made an excuse about homework and just got out of there. It was raining and the sun had already descended behind the clouds, so I hurried to where my car was parked on the curb. As soon as I was inside, I jacked up the heater as high as it would go and held my hands out towards the vents for a few seconds before pulling away from the curb.

I took a circuitous route home to shake off any potential tails (it's much harder to lose a tail than it is to establish one) and so made the ten-minute journey from Alice's house to mine in a little over half an hour. My dad was working the night shift this week at the precinct, and so the house was dark and empty when I reached it. I let myself in and dropped my things onto the couch in the living room, flipping on the light before heading to the kitchen and pulling a cookie out of the package on top of the refrigerator. Dinner of champions.

While the slightly stale crumbs dissolved on my tongue, I wandered back through the house, eventually making it upstairs. I took a quick shower and changed from my workout clothes into a different sweats-and-T-shirt combo before going back down the stairs, taking my time in the hallway.

I glanced at the few framed photographs that lined the walls as I passed them. One of them was a framed photo of Charlie's parents on their wedding day; another was of me, Charlie, and my mom the day they brought me home from the hospital. A handful were of him and his buddies fishing, or at Seahawks games, or doing other man-related stuff. He was smiling in all of them. It occurred to me that I would never have any photos like this – I would never be able to afford the familiarity it would take to develop those kinds of relationships with anyone outside the agency. And for obvious reasons, I couldn't have any photos with people _in_ the agency.

Nevertheless, I lingered by the wedding shot. My grandmother was wearing some confectioner's wet dream of a dress (all lace and frills and poofs and stuff), while my grandfather was in a tux. They both looked so happy. I could see traces of Charlie in both of their faces, and – it was so clear – I had my grandmother's big brown eyes. Idly, I wondered what my own wedding dress would look like… assuming that marriage was a viable option for me. I'd want it fitted at the bust and waist, certainly, maybe flowing out from my hips. No lace, no pearls. Strapless. I'd rather not wear a veil, because I knew the traditional meaning of veils and it didn't really appeal to me. My hair would be down, but maybe I'd curl it. Lightly. My flowers would be white lilies.

And what would the lucky guy look like? He'd wear a tux, of course, even though I'd never been a fan of bow ties. But the black of the tux would set off his pale skin and his coppery hair, maybe draw out the gold tint to his eyes…

Holy shit.

I walked away from the photo very quickly when Edward Cullen's face swam to the surface of my mind.

Plopping down onto the couch, I dragged my bag towards me, hauling out my calculus book. Technically, being in that advanced class as a junior was frowned upon by the agency, but it would look even mores suspicious to the administration if I tested into the class and then opted not to take it.

But no matter how hard or how long I worked, I kept coming back to the time I'd spent with Edward in the library this afternoon, or the conversation in Alice's basement after that.

It was just that Edward was so _interested_ in me, in everything I said or did. And his was a face that invited confidences, his was a voice that made you want to tell your secrets.

**Edward**

I perched at the very top of a Sitka spruce somewhere in the Olympic range, trying not to think about Bella.

The girl may as well have taken up permanent residence in my thoughts, for all the time she spent there. We had spent hours together yesterday and today, we were going to again tomorrow, and God knew how much time this weekend. All this time, when I would sit beside her, feeling her warmth, hearing her voice… hoping for her smiles.

I sighed and let the memory of this afternoon back into my thoughts…

_She had been about fifteen minutes late to the library on Thursday afternoon, which was just enough time for me to worry that she truly had decided to write me off as a sunlight-fearing demon. Although we had worked well on Wednesday, we had worked in silence, almost as if we were embarrassed to look at each other. I certainly knew that I didn't want to see any fear in her eyes – and surely, that fear was why she was avoiding mine. When we left the library for the day, though, she had smiled up at me as if nothing in the world was the matter._

_But when she rushed over to me in the corner of the fourth floor, where I'd staked out two armchairs and a table, her face was flushed, there were diamonds of raindrops in her hair, her coat was slightly open, and her bag was slung haphazardly over one shoulder._

_And her smile was quite possibly the loveliest thing I had ever seen._

"_Hey. Sorry about that," she was quick to apologize as she took the seat opposite me. "I just wanted to run home and grab my computer."_

"_It's no problem," I assured her, noticing how the rain intensified her scent, brought out the floral elements to it. It was a few seconds before I realized that there was no accompanying burn in my throat to this awareness._

_She set her computer – a new version of a MacBook that I had thought wasn't to go on the market for another few months – on the table and turned it on. At some point between Berlenbach's class and now, she had let her hair down, and the rain had darkened it, making it appear nearly black as it swirled around her. Impatiently, she braided it into one long plait down her back, and I watched the swift motion of her fingers with fascination. Certainly Rosalie spent plenty of time altering her appearance, but she never did it like this – like her looks were secondary, like she had better things to be doing._

_When Bella had brushed her braid back over her shoulder, she spoke to me again, startling me with the directness of her gaze. If, as I was sure, she suspected what I was, shouldn't she shrink from me? "So I was thinking that I could retype both the papers now so that they fit together," she told me, "and we could pool our notes for the presentation and you could start scripting it so that we have a better idea of what we'll need – you know, in terms of props and stuff. And heads up – can we not be overly creative?"_

_I frowned. "How do you mean?"_

"_I mean let's not have any dressing up and-slash-or reenactments, okay?" She shot me a pleading glance and I had to laugh._

"_Well, of the two of us, I look more like Kennedy–"_

"_Exactly." She motioned at me and sat back in her chair. "Which would mean that I'd have to be Oswald. No thank you."_

_I laughed again and I saw her own lips twitch up as she pulled her report and my own out of her bookbag. Both, I noticed, had been liberally marked up at some point in the last couple of days. "You've been busy," I observed._

"_Yeah, well. I still feel guilty about falling so far behind."_

_Here it was – a perfect opportunity to ask her again where she'd been. But I didn't want to change the easy, joking atmosphere that we had somehow conjured, so I simply extracted my own materials from my bag and set a stack of note cards on the table. I already had a vague outline of the presentation in my head, and so I didn't bother writing any preliminary notes down._

_We worked in companionable silence for a little over an hour, the steady cadence of her keyboard clicks only letting up once or twice as she looked up some fact or figure in one of the books we'd strewn across the table. Surreptitiously, I watched her as she focused. The light from the screen lit her face from below, giving her an unearthly glow. She was beautiful – had I really never noticed it before? Perhaps it was because the quizzical intensity in her eyes had always been so off-putting that her beauty had never really registered. But those eyes were so large and dark – like those of a doe. Wide, sculpted cheekbones and a small nose that hovered over full lips. One of those lips curled up and she bit on it gently – I may have groaned quietly, but she didn't notice._

_I forced myself to look back down at the table. It would be a colossal mistake – just one more to add to the ones I was already making, but still – to dwell on her lips… or her skin… or her body. Bella Swan could not afford to have me appreciate her in this way._

_But for better or for worse, we would be friends at the end of this project. It was an odd sensation, having a human friend. From the outside, their relationships always looked too complex to be worth the effort, but Bella played it remarkably straight with me – "You don't bother me, and I won't bother you. If you're nice to me, I'll be nice to you." It was refreshing, in a way._

_However… if we were friends, didn't I owe it to her to find out exactly what was the source of her pain? Didn't I have an obligation to find out what was causing her harm and try to prevent it?_

_It went beyond that, though. I… didn't like the idea of her hurting. It was something wrong that could not be allowed to stand. She should not hurt._

_I realized that I had been staring at her when her phone vibrated on the table and she jumped slightly before picking it up. I bent my head again and pretended not to watch as she pressed the key that would open the text message. Her brows constricted as she read it, then she sighed and set it back down with out typing a reply. Scowling slightly, she reapplied herself to the paper. After another five minutes of vigorous typing in which I nearly feared for the keyboard's safety, she glanced up, started to reach for a book, then stopped._

"_Edward, is this all the books we have?" she asked, surveying the spread on the table._

"_I think so," I answered. "Why?"_

_Grumbling, she stood up and fished her library card out of her wallet. "I'm going to go to the reference section," she told me. "We don't have enough information on Oswald's wife, and there's nothing good online." And before I could say anything, she stalked off._

_Whatever had been in that text must have upset her greatly – I eyed the phone she'd left on the table, trying to beat down the temptation. It was no business of mine – it was a gross invasion of her privacy. I had no right…_

_Before my thoughts got any farther than that, I glanced up once to make sure that she had disappeared into the elevator and leaned over, plucking the little purple device up from the table. I opened her inbox but it was empty. I was about to set the phone back down before something occurred to me, and I opened the folder labeled 'Trash' and selected the first message displayed. The sender was identified only as 'Office of Communications.'_

TO ALL AGENTS:

We understand that some of you are not applying yourselves fully to the orders we have given regarding the seeking out and destruction of the scourge known as vampirism. Please be aware that you all took an oath to protect and serve, and any joking done at the expense of this ongoing assignment puts lives at risk. Any agent found to be giving less than the fullest measure of devotion to this assignment will be terminated.

Furthermore, further activity related to what we believe to be the vampire scourge has been reported by operatives working in Russia, Alaska, and – on one occasion – in Tuscany. Please be advised.

For ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set ye free.

_And there it ended._

_I set her phone back down, being careful to return it to exactly its previous position, my mind buzzing. Apparently, Bella, Alice, and Jasper were not the only "agents" who did not believe in the vampire stories that their controllers were trying to sell them. Nevertheless, someone was seeking us – the vampires – out. _

_Tuscany could mean only one thing – some of the people with whom Bella was affiliated had stumbled upon the Volturi. But those people must have made it back home to report it, enabling a warning to be sent out to the rest of them. How could the Volturi be so careless?_

_Unless…_

_Unless they were fully aware that vampires were being sought out, and Aro wanted to test the skills of these humans. And he would turn the ones that showed the most promise, and add them to his guard._

_Ice encapsulated my chest. An image of Bella, her hair rippling out in waves, partially hiding her blood-red eyes, her slim body wrapped in a dark gray cloak, her expressionless face cast down as she trailed behind the Volturi…._

_I refused to allow that to happen to her. And so I would have to become her protector._

_All right. What would that entail?_

_I could never let her out of my sight, I realized. If I was truly to defend her from the possibility of Aro's abduction, I would have to be with her constantly, monitoring her surroundings for any possible threat. It would take some effort, but it could be accomplished._

_But could it be accomplished without arousing my family's suspicions?_

_I knew Rosalie would never stand for this perceived threat to our lifestyle – whatever I was feeling for Bella, she would still demand the girl's death. And I didn't trust her to believe that she wouldn't kill Bella herself, even if Carlisle was opposed to it. And I knew Carlisle would be opposed to it._

_But I would have to tell him everything about Bella. And that was something I still could not face. I wanted to fully understand what I was feeling for her before I dragged the rest of my family into this. That was surely fair, wasn't it?_

"_You're daydreaming," Bella's voice interrupted my thoughts, and I looked up to see her smiling again. Whatever had bothered her about the text, she had beat it back and seemed determined to return to her usual self._

"_Oh – yes. I'm sorry." I grinned and made a point of turning back to my note cards. If she could pretend that the world was normal, then so could I._

_She shrugged as she dropped back into her seat. "Don't apologize. We've been at it for over two hours now. In fact…" she rubbed her temples with her fingertips, propping her elbows up on the table. "You know what, when I finish this part, can we call it a day? Unless you have enough of the script done to have one read-through?"_

"_Er…." In reality, I'd been so focused on her all afternoon that I hadn't finished my job. "I might be done by the time you finish writing," I said awkwardly; I wasn't used to being the slowest in any pairing._

_Bella grinned. "Was that a challenge?"_

_I was about to protest, but then laughed. Why not? Why not play games with her, why not tease her, why not make her trust me? If I was to be her protector, she had to have faith in me. "It was."_

"_You're on." And she bent her face to her keyboard and began typing furiously._

_Damn it, she finished before I did._

_Smirking to herself, she emailed me a copy of the paper – "In case you want to proofread it" – and picked up her laptop, turning in the chair so that her knees were drawn up and she was leaning against the armrest instead of the back. It may have been a casual shift, or it may have been deliberate so that her back was now facing the wall instead of the room, and now no one could see the screen of her computer. For some reason, I was convinced it was the latter._

_But what she had not counted on was my vision being better than that of a human. And so while a human might not have been able to make out the dim reflection of the screen in the frosted glass of the wall behind Bella, I could see it perfectly. Surreptitiously, I watched her log into some sort of account while I pretended to focus on the note cards._

_There was no heading on the page she eventually accessed, and I wondered if that was deliberate. From a drop-down menu at the side of the nondescript screen, she selected an option that said, 'Work Orders.' Other items on the list were 'Schedule Changes,' 'Request to be Excused from Training Weekend,' and 'Change of Address Indication.'_

_When the Work Orders page opened, Bella entered KEVLAR VEST in the 'Item' line, and FIRE DAMAGE in the space for 'Issue.' I didn't quite know what to make of that._

_She snapped the computer down just as I finished filling out the last card. "You ready?"_

"_Yes." I handed her half the note cards. "Please make notes as you go of anything you think should be changed."_

"_Okay." She unlocked her phone and activated a timer. "What's our time minimum?"_

"_Ten minutes. Well, are you ready?"_

_We read through it, our voices lower to accommodate the library setting, but we were pacing ourselves. I imagined this was harder for me than it was for her, given that I was not speaking at my normal speed. At the end of the read-through, Bella stopped her timer and told me, "Ten minutes, thirty-two seconds. And we'll probably be inclined to speed up when we're actually up there. Hmm."_

_I shrugged. "You know we'll be using more time when we actually have the props, though."_

"_True." Bella glanced again at her phone. "Shoot. I need to get going."_

_We packed up our things, and only then did I notice that it had stopped raining. The silence that surrounded us as we went back down to the first floor and left the building wasn't the awkward, uncomfortable one that had cloaked us so often in the past, but it was still charged. Charged with something I could not name. "Where did you park?" she eventually asked me, looking up through her eyelashes._

"_Down a ways. On Third."_

"_Oh." She almost looked disappointed. "Well, I'm around the corner on Madison. Listen… we need to get started on the visual aids. Do you want to do that tomorrow or wait until the weekend? 'Cause we're pretty much done, except for that, aren't we?"_

"_We are, yes. How about we go to Artist and Craftsman Supply – do you know where that is?" When she shook her head, I added, "It's in the University District, on Eighth." Esme went there quite frequently._

_However, Bella was looking at me in confusion. "You're forgetting that I moved here barely a month ago, Edward. Can you give me the address?"_

_Impulsively, I made the offer. "Why don't I just take you there after school tomorrow? We could get what we need and then go back to your house to make the visual aids themselves."_

_Her eyes widened, and in a moment my heart had sunk. She was afraid to be alone with me – of course she was. But then she smiled. "Yeah, that sounds good. I'll just get a ride to school so I don't have to worry about my car." She reached out, her intent to lay a hand on the sleeve of my coat over my arm, but I moved in reaction and instead her fingertips touched the back of my hand. Without realizing what I did, my hand twisted so that I was holding hers. "I'll see you tomorrow, Edward."_

"_Of course" was all I could mutter as I stared down at our loosely entwined hands, trying to beat down the overwhelming sense of peace that I could feel spreading through me. _This is wrong….

"_Okay." And with one last smile, she released me, and started down the block. A moment later, she was gone._

I shook the memory off and leapt down from my perch in the tree, wondering what she was doing now. Sleeping, surely. I had no watch on me, but I knew it had to be well after midnight. It seemed that all the time I spent with Bella wasn't doing anything to alleviate my curiosity about her – if anything, it made it worse. Why did she have a Kevlar vest? And in what situation could it have retained fire damage?

And something about the text message she had received had been bothering me – aside from the obvious issue that, if she knew what I was, her orders were to kill me. It was that last line… something about knowing the truth. I had heard it before. Where had I heard it?

At a human pace, I began to walk back through the forest towards home, knowing that I'd have to start running soon if I wished to make it home before sunup. That sentence kept rolling around in my head.

I shrugged. Oh well. It would come to me if it was important.

Rosalie would not leave me alone the next day.

"What is wrong with you?" she snapped, looking at me in irritation across the table during the lunch hour. "You never want to go out with me and Em anymore, but you go hunting practically all the time by yourself now. What's going on?"

I shrugged, staring out the window at the parking lot. Rain was lashing the thin sheet of glass. "Maybe I got tired of being the perpetual third wheel."

"So do what you did before," she snapped. "Take some time off and live by yourself for a while. Just don't do this halfway shit. It's not fair to us."

Emmett raised his eyebrows and offered her one of his rare criticisms. "And now you're not being fair to Edward, Rose," he told her, keeping his voice down on purpose so as not to aggravate her any more than strictly necessary. "He's a part of our family. And he wants to stay here."

She huffed. "The least he could do is act like it. Doesn't it even bother you that he made you and I drive here separately today? He wanted the damn Volvo all to himself."

"I told you," I repeated evenly. "I have some errands to run after school. And I know you loved the opportunity to show off your car."

"Fine," she conceded, "but you could at least tell us what the errand _is_. And don't say you have to go to the library for that damn project again. You've had no problem dropping me and Em off at home and then coming back for the past week."

I just shrugged, hardly daring to imagine her reaction if she knew that I'd be having a human in the car with me. "It's Friday, Rosalie. That means you'll have the whole weekend for any family bonding activities you deem necessary."

"Don't mock me," she snapped. "And it's not just me you're worrying. Esme is getting concerned too."

"And she knows she can speak directly to me if she has a problem with my behavior."

"God, shut up, both of you," Emmett groaned; in the corner of my eye I could see the tension in the arm he'd thrown over the back of Rosalie's chair. "Edward, do what you want. Rosalie, leave him alone."

"Don't tell me what to do," she snapped. Thankfully, the bell rang then, so I didn't have to listen to his reply.

Berlenbach was giving a test all period that day, so I had no opportunity to speak to Bella. She did, however, shoot me a quick smile on her way to her seat. Automatically, I turned to Jasper Whitlock to see if he was glaring at her again, but instead he was exchanging a look that was half sadness, half apprehension with Alice Brandon.

A chill settled in my chest. Had Bella told them her suspicions of me and my family, and were they now afraid for her? I didn't know. But then… if Bella had told them her suspicions, if she even _had_ any suspicions, surely a quick shared glance was something of an understated reaction.

No, their concern was probably the same concern that Jasper had shared the other night: as Bella grew more attached to me, there was an ever greater chance that I could pose a danger to whatever it was the three of them were part of. And I could understand that. Because as _I_ grew more attached to _Bella_, there was an ever greater chance that she would find out the truth about me.

Yes, it would be in the best interest of the both of us to see no more of each other.

But as I looked over at her, the graceful curve of her neck, the concentration in her eyes as she focused on her test, the sweep of her long mahogany hair over one shoulder, the white teeth nipping at her lower lip, the slender fingers holding her pencil, I knew that, for me at least, separation was no longer an option. It was painful in ways I did not understand to contemplate being apart from her.

As was becoming usual, I had no idea what happened in my last class of the day, and then I was making my way towards the parking lot along with the rest of the student body… all the humans so jubilant to have school done for one day. As if they did not have to return tomorrow… as if the tedium truly did not wear on them. The moment I stepped out the door, I moved to the side and leaned up against the wall, where Bella and I had agreed to meet. None of the humans noticed me as they rushed past. Instead, they were reacting in pleasure at the fact that the rain had stopped, the clouds were thinning. The sun might even come out for a few minutes.

When Rosalie and Emmett appeared, Rosalie stalked past me without turning her head, but Emmett paused, watching her disappearing figure subtly cut a swath through the humans as she moved towards her bright red M6. "Listen," said Emmett, his voice low, "you are being careful, right? She's just worried. We're just worried."

I sighed. "I know better than to do anything that could reveal what we are, Em. Tell her to calm down."

"That's not what she's worried about–" he cut off when I snorted "–okay, it is, but it's not what _I'm _worried about. You know you can't be with her. Unless you turn her."

Glaring at him, I retorted, "Emmett, it's not like I'm about to take her off into a dark alley and have sex with her."

He held up both his hands, fighting back a smile. "Okay, okay. Sorry. Have fun, then." He started to walk away, but then turned back and shouted over the heads of a huddle of freshmen who looked up, startled, "But not too much fun! You don't have a condom!"

I was flipping him off just as Bella appeared beside me. "Um. Do I want to know?"

Shaking my head, I took her elbow and began to guide her through the thinning gaggle of people, most of who were now staring at Bella and me. "You really don't," I told her. "My brother just thinks he's funny."

"Okay, then," she laughed.

As we walked to the row where I had parked, we slipped into a silence, but it wasn't uncomfortable. At least not for me. Bella had laughed at something I had said. That gave me more happiness than I had known for quite some time.

When I opened the passenger's side door for her, she paused, looking at me with raised eyebrows. "What?" I asked, disconcerted by her hesitation.

"Um." She seemed to be fumbling. "Nothing." Without further comment, she got in, but the confusion on her face had now passed to me. I was halfway around the car before I realized the probably cause, and when I got in the car and started the engine, I asked her about it.

"Had no one ever done that for you before? Opened a door for you?"

She started to answer, then shut her mouth rapidly. When she began again, I got the distinct impression that the words coming out of her mouth were not the ones she wanted to say. "Usually… when guys do stuff like that for me… they're pretending to be something they're not."

I frowned at that and she hurried on, "But with you it's different. Like, I get the feeling you didn't do it because you were trying to impress me. You just did it because it was natural for you."

"It should be natural for every man," I muttered, steering our way out of the lot. "At least where you're concerned."

There was a hitch, and I glanced over in surprise to see that her breath had caught. She was staring at me, her eyes wide, her pupils dilated, her full lips slightly parted. My breathing sped as my gaze flickered back down to those lips, then up to her eyes. It may have been a trick of the light, but I thought I saw warm invitations in their dark depths.

Mindful of where we were and who we were, I cleared my throat and turned back to the road, pulling out onto the street. She didn't speak, and our comfortable silence from earlier was replaced by a tension that spread throughout the car.

No, not tension. It was her scent that was saturating the air, making its way slowly into my consciousness. In a way it was a small victory that I had not noticed it until then, but the burn was creeping up my throat, my stomach twisted with the hunger that was an echo of the thirst. I had to stop breathing it in…

"Do you mind if I roll the windows down?" I asked abruptly, not caring if she took a chill. Right now, her life was more important to me than her comfort.

But she did not act surprise when she nodded once, and I wondered yet again what she suspected. But she had gotten into a car with me, had she not?

The clean damp air flooded the car and I inhaled deeply yet calmly, so as not to attract her attention. She surprised me when she asked, "So what are your preset radio stations?" When I looked over at her, she added, "I figure if we're not going to talk, the least we can do is listen to music."

I had to laugh; she, more than anyone I had ever met, could elicit that reaction from me. "I actually don't have any," I told her. "Whenever I do set one, Emmett always changes it. So there's really no point. Besides, deejays irritate me sometimes."

She nodded. "I get that. So what kind of music do you listen to?"

"Well, you have to remember that Seattle is very much the capital city of indie music. So much of what I like, I doubt you've ever heard of."

Bella tried to look offended for a moment, but then giggled. "You're probably right. Can you give me some of your favorite mainstreams, then, so I have some context?"

"Of course. Muse, Coldplay, Anberlin, 30 Seconds to Mars, Blue October, Angels & Airwaves, Oasis, and Arcade Fire." I tried to list my favorites from this past decade only, so that she would recognize them.

The corner of her lips twitched upwards. "You know, we actually have some overlap," she said.

"Do we? Which ones?"

"Coldplay, Anberlin, and 30 Seconds to Mars. I can only handle so much Muse and Blue October in one sitting. I've never heard of Angels & Airwaves."

"I can burn you a CD," I offered. "What are some of your other favorites?"

"Third Eye Blind, Rise Against, Paramore, Taylor Swift – although I'll deny having said that – New Found Glory, Dashboard Confessional, and My Chemical Romance."

I blinked. "That is… unexpected."

She laughed again. "I don't strike you as a very My Chem-type girl?"

Grinning, I conceded. The conversation wandered to live shows we'd been to, and Bella described for me the local club venue that she and her friends had sneaked into frequently in Phoenix. "Of course, a lot of the music that passes through Phoenix is Latino rap or hip-hop, and that's not really my thing. But whenever an alternative band came to town, we usually went."

"And who was we?" I asked, trying to be casual.

She shrugged. "Six of us, usually. Me, Kristy, Micah, Ryan, Autumn, and Zach."

"Were any of the boys your boyfriend?" The question was out before I could recall it.

To my relief, though, Bella shook her head. "Nah. Micah and Kristy were together, and Ryan's gay. Zach had the hugest crush on Autumn, and was just beginning to get up the nerve to ask her out when I left."

"Oh," I sighed, reassured. "And did he?"

Her face seemed to close off. "I don't know. We didn't really stay in touch." Off my confused look, she elaborated, "They were great people, but we were really only friends because we'd grown up together than anything else."

I decided not to ask any more questions, which was just as well, because we had reached our destination. Her eyes lit up when she saw it. "Thank goodness. I was picturing some huge JoAnn's-type chain store."

"Well, it _is_ pretty big," I pointed out as I held the door open for her to step inside. The scent of artificial cinnamon from the Thanksgiving potpourri assaulted us, and I had to stop my nose from wrinkling. The smell wouldn't bother a human, I reminded myself.

We went straight to the scrapbooking section of the store and got several sheets of paper, as well as two big poster boards. Bella found some cutouts of torches – in honor of the torch that, Kennedy had said, had been passed to a new generation of Americans – and shamrocks – to represent his Irish heritage. "Are you Irish?" she asked me absently. "You have the hair."

Carefully, I told her, "Probably. My birth surname was Masen… and the hair, as you can see. But I don't really remember my parents."

Bella nodded and then left it alone. She insisted on picking up some ribbon and craft scissors – "So it doesn't look like we just threw this together" – and then agreed that we were ready to check out. As we waited in line, Bella glanced over the headlines of the magazines on the newsstands while I stared idly out the storefront windows. When I saw her, at first I thought I had imagined it. "I thought she moved," I murmured.

"Who moved?" Bella asked.

"Irina Alexandrovna. She left school before you moved here, but I just saw her outside."

"_What_?" Bella demanded, grabbing my arm. I looked down at her in surprise. "You're sure it was her?"

"Reasonably," I stuttered, surprised by her sudden intensity. "I mean, she's cut her hair and she was walking quickly, but she looked in here as she passed–"

"Hold these." Bella shoved the paper and cutouts she was holding into my hands. "Which way did she go?"

"Left – but – Bella, what–?"

Without answering me, she wove back through the line and darted out the door. As I watched, she began to run once she was outside, going in the same direction as Irina had. I didn't really understand what the issue was, but Bella was worrying me. She was determined to follow a girl she'd never even met–

Wait. Last week, Esme had said that an eighteen-year-old girl with short blonde hair had followed her around the grocery store. And a girl who matched that description had showed up at Esme's work….

Was it possible that someone was following my family? Someone _else_, in addition to whomever Bella was working for?

That sobering thought was enough to keep me quiet as the line advanced. Eventually, I paid the Seattle University student working the register and went back outside, gazing in the direction that Bella and Irina had gone. I knew I was being too still, and passersby would look at me curiously, leaning up against my car, arms folded, staring fixedly at the end of the street. But I didn't care. Something was telling me not to go after Bella, even as I became increasingly nervous as the seconds ticked on. Somehow, I knew that she could handle herself.

Finally, she appeared at the corner and walked swiftly back towards me, her hands in the pocket of her sweatshirt, her eyes down. She looked neither left nor right until she reached my car. "Did you catch her?" I asked, again getting the door for her.

She shook her head. "No." she hesitated. "Edward, are you certain?"

I nodded once, no longer irritated with her repeated questions. "Yes. She sat next to me in my English class all last year. I would know her face."

"Okay." Bella got in the car, and when I joined her on the driver's side, she had her phone out and was tapping out a text message. Without being obvious, I read it quickly before she sent it.

The two recipients were Jasper W. and Alice B. _come to my house at midnight. separately. urgent._

**Hmmm... what was that about? I'd love to hear all your theories about Irina. See you soon, hopefully.**_  
><em>


	7. Chapter 7

**So I know it's been a while. To recap: Bella and Edward were shopping for art supplies, when Edward saw a girl who looked like Irina outside. Bella chased the girl but didn't catch her.**

**Seven**

**Bella**

"It can't've been her," Alice insisted as Jasper paced up and down the floor of my bedroom. "Look, Bella even said she didn't see her. And Edward couldn't've gotten a good look at her anyway."

"Still, though," retorted Jasper, "let's say for a second that Edward was right, and it _was_ Irina. Well, then, clearly she didn't die on that op–"

"Her kill was confirmed," Alice cut him off. All the lights were off, so I couldn't see her face, but indignant anger was creeping into her voice.

I shook my head, not removing my arms from their position wrapped around my knees, which were drawn up to my chest as I sat on my bed. "It wasn't. Last weekend I was talking to somebody on that op, and he said they hadn't brought her body back. So it wasn't confirmed."

"Like I was going to say, she faked it," Japer continued. "Which means she's now gone rogue. She's using agency skills to operate outside the agency, and is probably colluding with enemies."

"And she's not stupid," I added. "She knew I was following her. She knows I made her."

"How does it make _sense,_ though?" Alice demanded, throwing her hands up. When they came back down, one of her palms smacked my desk. "I mean, okay, so maybe she faked her own death. Why come back to Seattle? Her parents don't even live here anymore."

Jasper nodded slowly in the dim moonlight from the window. "Good point. There's got to be something she wants here."

"Look who's all prepared to take Edward Cullen's word now," Alice snapped at him. "Why are you so ready to believe him?"

"Because unlike us, Irina's not being dead means nothing to him. He has no reason to imagine her, especially with a different appearance than as he last saw her."

But I was more focused on Alice's first question – as to why Irina would return to Seattle. Jasper was right; there was nothing here for her. So, she had to be either following me… or Edward.

My heart stopped. What if she had been on the op that had first uncovered the existence of vampires? What if she had chosen to leave the agency based on that, and was now seeking out vampires on her own? Or what if she had joined another group – a cult or a bureau – that was pledged to keeping the world safe or something?

I had to know what that last op was.

Charles might be willing to tell me, but the next time I'd see him was at the next training weekend, and it wouldn't be safe to have that conversation in the Cradle. I had no control over whether we were ever placed on an op together or if we even departed from the same airport. I didn't have his phone number.

Which meant that I'd have to access the file itself.

It was seventy-four different kinds of illegal for me to do that, but it was a risk I was willing to take. I had to do it, if it meant protecting Edward.

Fortunately, Jasper was thinking along the same lines. "The least we can do," he was saying slowly, "is figure out exactly how she supposedly died. If someone actually saw her heart stop beating, that's great, but if she fell or something and they had to leave her… well, that's a problem."

"Brilliant idea, Jazz. Now how do you propose we do it?" Alice asked sarcastically.

I glanced at what little of Jasper I could see. "Did you forget to feed her or something?"

"Shut up, Bella!" Alice shouted, then checked herself as we all listened for any sign that my father had woken up and heard her. She continued in a hiss. "Irina was my friend, and now you guys are implying that she faked her own death to go parley with enemies of the state! I'm sorry if that pisses me off!"

"Baby, we're not trying to imply that, we're just stating the facts. And the likelihoods," Jasper soothed her. Junior CIA agents had betrayed the agency before – it was extremely rare, but it _had_ happened. "Now can you _please_ try to be objective?" He waited for her to nod before going on. "Okay. So we won't be able to talk to the people actually on the op unless we get extremely lucky, so we're going to need to access that file."

"I was thinking," I said slowly, making it up as I went along, "that one of you could go with me when I reported it – preferably Alice. We could say that we're concerned about the city's security, if it's apparently in so much danger that an operative has to fake her own death to come back and protect it successfully. And if that doesn't work, Alice could add that she just really wants some closure for the death of her friend."

I could feel Jasper staring at me. "That might work," he said slowly. "And we could play on their whole Operation Fang shit."

I didn't feel it necessary to mention that I was reasonably sure that this had everything to do with Operation Fang.

"I won't do it," Alice said adamantly. "I won't believe it of her."

"Then come to prove me wrong," I argued. She opened her mouth, then stopped to consider it. Then she nodded. Satisfied, I turned back to Jasper's silhouette. "Listen, she might try to contact one of the two of you. My money's on Alice, but you should be on the lookout too."

"If she does contact any of us, we immediately notify the others," he said. "Deal?"

I nodded, and Alice said, "Of course. Now can I leave?" When neither of us answered her, she got up, grabbed her coat and keys, and left without another word. Jasper couldn't go at the same time as her, so he sank down on my bed next to me and braced his elbows on his knees, dropping his head into his hand.

"You know something, Bella? Life was way less complicated before you came to Seattle."

I laughed ruefully. "I agree. I'm sorry Alice is angry with you."

"She's not really angry with _me_. She's just having a hard time reconciling what she thought of Irina with the facts we've presented her with."

My curiosity got the best of me. "Why _are_ you so willing to take Edward's word for this, Jasper? Because what I told you is me going entirely on what he told me."

Jasper sighed and got up, walking over to my window. "Because I don't doubt that he's a good person, Bella," he said slowly. "And honestly, with the way your face lights up whenever you talk about him – don't argue, okay? – I think you two could really work well together. And I wish it was an option for you."

"Why is it that the adult agents are allowed to marry outside the agency?" I wondered, the image of myself in a wedding dress and Edward in a tuxedo creeping back into my mind.

"Beg pardon? _Marry_?"

"You know what I meant."

After a pause, Jasper turned around and walked back to my bed, this time sitting so that he was facing me. "Could you love him?" he asked, his voice quiet. "I'm not asking you if you do. Just if you could."

I opened my mouth, closed it. "Why does it matter?"

He shrugged. "It doesn't, not really. It just changes the way I feel about it."

"You mean whether you get to be angry with me or feel sorry for me?" I clarified.

"Pretty much, yeah."

Laying back on my bed, I studied the shadows that the streetlamp outside cast on my ceiling. The words were just a whisper. "I think I could, Jazz. I really do." Even though I knew that he was a vampire.

The thought shocked me. Had I accepted the impossible, then? Did I believe it?

I thought of him, of his gentleman-like manners, of his anachronistic speech, of the way his gaze lingered on my throat… yes, I believed it.

And it didn't change anything.

Eventually, I would have to tell Alice and Jasper. But not yet. I wanted to know what I meant to Edward first. I wanted to know more about him.

And so when Jasper left fifteen minutes after Alice, I lay back on my bed but did not change into my nightclothes. I might as well be honest with myself now: Yes, I was actively defying an order given by the Central Intelligence Agency. As if that were not enough, I was courting a relationship with a civilian, and that civilian was already pretty damn sure that I was not a normal girl. I was hiding things from my teammates.

Each of those small acts of defiance in and of themselves would have been bad enough, but all of them together were enough to get me a burn notice.

Spies do not get fired. They get burned. Any and all agency protection was withheld from them, and they were simply left with what they already had and their own intelligence to start a new life. It was easier for junior agents like me to get burned because our adult lives hadn't started yet, and so our lives weren't built on quite as many lies as their older counterparts. Still, the thought of being burned sent a shiver down my spine, and I shoved the thought away.

I'd had a biology teacher my sophomore year of high school who firmly believed that love could be quantified, that you could only ever love someone in direct proportion with how much that other person loved you. At the time, I had scoffed; I was a teenager, for God's sake; half my classmates were dealing with unrequited love. But now, I almost hoped that my teacher was right. I'd admitted to Jasper that I _could_ love Edward. By her teacher's theory, it was now mandatory that Edward _could _love me.

A wave of sadness washed over me. How lonely he and his family must be, I mused, because if they really never aged or changed, then vampires could not stay in any place for extended periods of time, so the only meaningful relationships they could have were with each other. Granted, Rosalie and Emmett seemed to be in love, but I'd never even met Esme or – what was the doctor's name? Carlisle? – so I had no idea what their relationship was. Something told me that it was romantic, though; it would have been much harder for them to pass themselves off as husband and wife if it wasn't… which may have been why they hadn't bothered trying to hide it with the two younger ones.

Bella winced. _Younger_. How old _was_ Edward, anyway? How much… _history_ had he seen? After a moment, though, I grunted to myself, got up, and changed into my nightclothes. It didn't really matter. I deliberately shut down my brain as I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth, shut off my bedroom light, and crawled into bed.

It was just as I was ready to drift off that the thought came to me. _The Vampire Diaries_, that series written by L. J. Smith or whoever, and the multitudinous vampire knock-offs it had spawned, always ended in the same way: the human girl lets the vampire boy turn her so that they could live happily ever after. Supposing Edward did love me… what would he expect of me?

A sudden movement out of the corner of my eye made me jump, and I slid off the bed and hurried to the window, my knife gripped in my hand. When I peered out the window, though, all I could see were the shifting of the branches of the tree in the side yard.

I returned to my bed but was somehow unable to shake the feeling of being watched.

**Edward**

Bella looked like hell the next morning, and I saw it. True to my promise to myself, I had arrived at her home that night a little after midnight and had taken a post in the tree outside her bedroom window. I had not dared enter the room because she spent most of the night awake, only dozing off briefly and restlessly; Jasper and Alice had already left, if they'd even come, by the time I got there.

Nothing threatened her, at least not that night. I could satisfy myself as to that, at least.

I was at the end of the hall when she slipped through their classmates to get to her locker, twisted the combination, swapped some things out, and then slammed the door shut again. But instead of walking away as I expected, she sank to the floor and sat there, her back pressed up the locker banks, and closed her eyes. I walked forward until I was standing right next to her, and after a moment, seated myself beside her. I was relieved when she didn't instinctively reach for whatever weapon she usually concealed at her hip.

Without opening her eyes, Bella said, "Go away."

I laughed. "Not likely. You look tired."

"Meaning I look like crap. I don't want to talk to you about the history project."

"Would you like to talk to me about something other than the history project?"

She lifted one lid and cut her eyes at me for a moment. "Edward, what makes you think I want to talk to you in general?"

"You're sitting on the floor of a hallway in a public school with your eyes closed," I pointed out. "This seems to indicate that something is going on with you that you want to discuss with _someone_."

At that, she chuckled ruefully, and after a moment she let her head drop sideways to rest on my shoulder. I tensed for a moment, but did not move to push her away. Just for now, I didn't give a damn if Rosalie saw, if Emmett speculated. I liked her head on my shoulder. "I'm sleep-deprived," she muttered.

I laughed once, feeling her smooth hair slide against the skin of my cheek, resisting the urge to rest my own temple against the top of her head. Where had _this_ come from? Did she know what she was doing? I knew the other humans were beginning to stare as I replied, "Oh? Any particular reason?" I paused, then made myself ask, "Is it because of Irina?"

Bella was saved answering by someone else plunking down on her other side, and this time she _did_ reach for her waist as she sat up straight. Her eyes found an absolutely _huge_ senior boy with curly dark hair grinning at her. "Are you Bella?" he asked without preamble. "My brother talks about you constantly."

I growled, too low for Bella to hear. "Em, you know I don't." This was actually true – I made a conscious effort to avoid talking about Bella to his family, let alone constantly.

Emmett shrugged and retorted, "You talk about her often enough that I know her name, Edward. Speaking of names, aren't you going to introduce us?"

Completely bemused, Bella's eyes were darting back and forth between us as she tried to keep up. I sighed. "Bella Swan, this is my extremely irritating cousin, Rosalie McCarty Cullen."

"McCarty?" Bella repeated as Emmett enthusiastically shook her hand. "You're Irish?"

"Uh-huh," Emmett nodded, ignoring my pointed look of warning. "Scots-Irish, actually. You ever been?"

Bella shook her head regretfully. "No. I'd love to go, though. There, England, and France." She bit her lip, and I wondered yet again what she wasn't saying.

Emmett scowled. "Ugh. Damn the French ," he cursed, and Bella laughed aloud.

"As fascinating as this conversation is," I interrupted before Emmett could give anything else away, "the bell is about to ring, people, and God knows what's been on this floor." I stood and helped Bella to her feet while Emmett bolted upright with a speed that was nearly inhuman. He waved and took off, weaving through their classmates, his size parting the crowd easily.

"Is he always like that?" Bella asked as she watched her go. I shrugged.

"Only around people he likes. Are you sure you're all right, Bella?"

She nodded and found a smile for me. "I just wish I had some coffee, but yeah, I'm fine."

"Would you like to go during break?" I offered. "I'll drive. What class do you have second period?"

"Will we get back in time?" She eyed me doubtfully.

I had to laugh – if she only knew how I drove. "Seattle is the coffee capital of the world, remember. There's a coffeehouse right around the corner. There's one right around _every_ corner, in fact."

"Okay," Bella giggled too. "Um, Kartley, calculus, room 215."

I nodded and quickly touched the back of her hand. "Fine. Wait for me, and I'll come to you."

My eyes held hers for a beat longer as we both absorbed my words. Somehow, I was sure that Bella knew I wasn't simply talking about coffee anymore.

Then I turned and strode off, disappearing around the corner just as the first bell rang, before I could reach forward and take her in my arms.

**Bella**

I didn't participate at all in the discussion during my first period English class, but nobody noticed that I just sat there and stared out the window. In calculus, the one class that I shared with Alice but not with Jasper, I heard none of the lecture but spent the hour doodling absently on my notebook's back cover and fidgeting in my seat every few seconds. When my phone buzzed with a quarter of an hour left in the class, I jumped.

_Calm down – you're attracting attention,_ Alice scolded me.

I read the text and sighed, knowing better than to look up and meet Alice's eyes. I _was_ being conspicuous, but I somehow couldn't help it. I decided to level with Alice: _may as well tell u now. going w/Edward 2 get coffee during break._

Seconds later, across the room, Alice dropped her pencil onto her desktop. Nobody but me took any notice.

Several minutes passed, long enough for me to worry that I had, finally, really angered Alice. But when my phone vibrated again, it wasn't the scolding I expected. _if it didn't defy protocol, i'd invite myself along. where u going?_

_idk_, I replied. _i don't know the area well enough, so i'm going to trust his judgement. ur not mad me?_

I could almost hear Alice's sigh when I read her reply. _i kno enough 2 c when something's inevitable, bell. u and Edward – inevitable. he just better not hurt u, and u just better keep ur damn mouth shut._

I swallowed a giggle. _i can do that._ Though I wondered if I could. I was keeping Edward's secret – assuming I was even right about his secret – well enough. But if he chose to tell me, wouldn't I owe him the truth about myself as well?

That one question was enough to keep my thoughts occupied until the bell, along with the accompanying butterflies about whether or not Edward really did like me in _that way_ or if he'd just offered to take me to get coffee as he would any vague acquaintance who'd clearly had a rough night.

Although, from what I gathered, he didn't even have that many vague acquaintances.

But when I hesitantly stepped out of the classroom and saw Edward leaning up against the bank of lockers across the hall, arms folded across his chest, the hood of his jacket up over his messy bronze hair, golden eyes fixed on the doorway and his face breaking into the shyest of smiles when I emerged, I was unable to keep worrying. My own lips twitching up timidly, I crossed the hall to go to his side. Alice passed me with a raised eyebrow and a whispered "Good luck!" and then disappeared, as if she had never been.

"Hey," Edward grinned when I reached him, straightening up. "Listen, I know I said that there was a place close, but we're going to need to move to get back before the end of break."

"Of course," I replied, falling into step with him. The crowd thinned the closer they got to the parking lot, and something occurred to me. When I had tipped my head onto his shoulder earlier that morning, my neck had been exposed, since I again had my hair in one long braid down my back. If it had bothered him, he hadn't reacted. Interesting. I made a mental note to share the observation with Jasper, before remembering… that I couldn't.

"So what's up with the cars?" I asked suddenly as Edward opened the passenger's side door of his Volvo for me. He raised his eyebrows, wordlessly asking me to elaborate. I leaned against the open door, holding it between us, as I continued. "You have an Volvo. I saw that your brother – who is eighteen, by the way – has a Jeep."

Edward waited for me to slip into the car, then walked around to let himself into the driver's seat before he answered. When he did, he started it off with a shrug. "Both Carlisle and Esme are trust fund babies," he said bluntly, putting the Volvo in reverse, placing his hand on the headrest of my seat to help himself face backwards, and backing out of the spot. "And Carlisle's a really talented doctor. when we each turned sixteen, Esme had us start in on the stock market, and we've been extremely lucky."

I nodded slowly. His candor should have impressed me, but I was an accomplished enough liar to recognize a whopper when I heard one. The first rule of telling a good lie was to _seem_ perfectly honest. All I said, though, was, "I see."

True to Edward's word, we did indeed arrive at the little storefront coffee shop within two minutes of second period ending, and I raised my eyebrows when I saw the sign above the door. "It's… not a Starbucks."

Edward made the scornful back-of-the-throat noise that was growing increasingly common among Seattle hipsters. "You don't want Starbucks. High price and low quality." I watched him for a moment, and he broke first – he laughed aloud at the ridiculousness of his own statement coupled with my expression. I focused, trying to commit the sound of his laughter to memory. It was so clear….

"That's what I thought," I told him, satisfied, as I let myself out of the car and met him on the curb. He did, however, manage to get the shop's door for me.

There was no line and we were in a hurry, so I didn't have much time to appreciate the dark-paneled walls, overstuffed armchairs, low tables, and oriental rugs that made up the interior of the shop, bathed in an eerie red glow due to the scarves that had been thrown over the lamps. "Sufficiently non-mainstream. I'm impressed," I whispered to Edward just before we stepped up to order, and he laughed in the barista's face before the poor man had a chance to say anything.

I ordered a caramel latte, but shook his head when asked what he wanted. I stared at him. "Did you seriously come all the way here just for _me_? Don't you want anything?"

"It's hardly _all the way_," he pointed out, and waved away my wallet and paid for my coffee himself. "Trust fund baby, remember?" he grinned at me. I was too stunned to even say thank you. "You know, I don't understand how you can drink it with all that extra junk in it."

"Bite me," I retorted, then remembered who I was talking to. I forced myself to keep looking forward. "Um, we should get going, yeah?"

He nodded and led me to the door, which he again opened for me. I didn't like the sudden silence that had fallen over us as a result of my Freudian slip, so I cast around for a new subject. What had we been talking about earlier? Music. Right. "So you're going to make me that CD, right?" I asked him.

"If you want me to, of course," Edward replied, but didn't add anything.

I tried again. "What was the band's name? Angels and something?"

"And airwaves." He paused. "You know, I'm not that familiar with Taylor Swift," he told me, beginning to smile. "Maybe you could–"

"Shut up!" I shouted, transferring my coffee cup to my other hand so that I could smack his arm. "We don't discuss her in public!"

Edward laughed and placed a hand lightly at the small of my back, guiding me to the car. I could have rushed and gotten my own door, but I let him open it for me. I decided I could get used to that. "We have three minutes until next bell," I observed as he started the car and nosed back into the street. "Can you make that?"

He glanced at me from the corner of my eyes. "Another challenge?"

"Nah. I got nothing to offer as a counter. So I guess you could call it a dare."

"I hate dares," he muttered. "Em throws them all the time." All the same, though, he moved a little faster than he had on the way to the coffee place.

I relaxed, leaning against my seat, and glanced idly at the rearview mirror outside my window, the coffee warming my hands. Through the mirror, I could see, in the lane next to ours, a car driven by another girl around our age. _Maybe she's late_, I wondered idly… but then I saw the girl's hair.

Short. Blonde. As I sat up, I noticed the set of the girl's mouth – the lips were pressed together, and there was a coldly determined expression in the eyes. It was too much of a coincidence.

"Bella? Are you all right?" Edward's voice pulled me back, and I resettled myself against the seat, but kept watching Irina's car in the mirror as I answered.

"I'm okay. Late night catching up to me, I guess."

Edward nodded and didn't push me, but he did check all the rearview mirrors, hoping to catch sight of whatever had upset me. He didn't see Irina, though, as she was in one of his blind spots.

When we turned back into the school parking lot, Irina kept going, but she fully turned her head to the left to watch Edward's car return to its parking spot. _Sloppy_, I thought, and I wondered about that. The whole thing was sloppy. Granted, Irina had been one lane over from us, but she hadn't kept any cars between us, she hadn't tried to disguise her appearance, and she had returned to a mark that had made her only the previous day.

I made a mental note to ask Alice if Irina was a particularly talented agent. Because just then, it didn't seem like it.

"Under three minutes," Edward said triumphantly as he cut his engine. "Won your dare."

"Looks like you did," I smiled. "I hope you'll let me pay you back, though. For the coffee."

"Don't worry about it." He got out and, in the interest of time, I got my own door too. We had to walk a little faster to get back into the building, because it was also starting to rain. When we started up the stairs into the school, Edward glanced to the side. My choker was still lying in the gutter, barely visible under the filthy rainwater that flowed over it. He pointed it out to me just before we stepped into the crowded, noisy hallway.

"Why did you toss that?"

I shrugged and hugged my coat tighter around myself, remembering the sense of conviction that had washed through me when I undid the clasp. "It was… silly. And it didn't mean what I thought it meant. I'm going upstairs." Automatically, I held out one arm for Edward, and he hesitated for only a moment before he accepted my hug. My body pressed against his chest just for a moment, even through my coat and his jacket, I swore I could feel his chiseled body against mine. And Edward was holding me, however briefly. I stopped myself from pressing my face into his body.

"I'll see you fifth period?" I had to break away. It came out as a question.

He nodded, smiling one last time. "See you. And thanks again."

Once I was halfway up the stairs, though, my own smile disappeared as I pulled out my phone. Quickly, I texted both Jasper and Alice to meet at my car during lunch, but didn't bother providing an explanation. If I needed to see them face-to-face during school hours, then they would know it was important.

The moment I sat down in my third period class, my phone buzzed again. It was Alice, and she was worried. _he make u during ur little coffee date?_

_he did not make me,_ I replied, irritated. As soon as that message was gone, I sent a follow-up: _even if he had, it wouldn't be my biggest concern just now._

"So we have a problem? Did Edward make you?" Jasper asked as he pulled open one of the back doors of my car and slid inside, trying to keep the rain from getting on the upholstery. I turned around from the driver's seat and raised my eyebrows while Alice sputtered.

"I didn't know you had such a lack of faith in my ability to keep my cover," I said coolly. "Just thought you might like to know that Irina was following me when I was coming back to campus during break."

Jasper swore.

"Following you and Edward," Alice corrected quietly, her voice nearly inaudible over the pounding on the roof of the car, playing with a loose thread in the passenger's seat. I shrugged, then nodded. Jasper would probably find out anyway; why deny it?

"This just keeps getting better," Jasper groaned as he tilted his head back against the seat. "Bella, what the fuck were you doing off campus with Edward Cullen?"

"Getting coffee," I replied, defensive. "He noticed this morning that I looked tired, so he offered–"

"Jasper, it's okay," Alice interrupted. "Bell's not stupid. She can take care of herself, and she _can_ keep her cover." She paused. "Besides, it's just high school. They won't be together forever or anything."

Jasper's face hardened. "I'm sorry that's what you think about high school relationships, Alice. But I'm wondering why you're just bringing it up now."

"I didn't mean _us_," Alice sighed, but I cut her off before she could go on.

"Please have that conversation somewhere that is not my car. Speaking of keeping a cover, was Irina a bad agent? Because I've made her twice in less than twenty-four hours. Is that typical of her?"

Alice frowned while Jasper replied, "Not really. But does she know you're CIA? She was a couple classes above us, after all."

"I don't know," I shook my head slowly. "I was never on an op with her, and I don't recall ever having worked with her at the Cradle. But we're really a small group. It's possible that she recognized me."

"I just had a thought," Alice said, sitting up suddenly and facing us. "Okay, so both times Bella spotted Irina–"

"First time, Bella didn't spot her at all–"

"Jasper, be quiet. Both times _Irina has been spotted_, Bella was with Edward. Now, we can agree that Irina is being sloppy, yes?" She waited for us to nod before continuing. "Okay, so maybe she's being sloppy because she doesn't know she's tailing a CIA operative, because she's _not _tailing a CIA operative." She waited for Jasper and me to catch up.

"So… what?" Jasper asked. "She's following Cullen? Why?"

I remained silent, because I'd already been down this mental path, and Jasper noticed. Turning to her, he asked, "Bell, what do you know?"

I sighed and turned to look out the front windshield, watching the rain lash the glass. "Nothing for sure. And that's all I'm going to say right now."

"But you want to say _something_," Alice encouraged.

"Just because I hate lying to you doesn't mean I'm going to betray a tacit confidence," I said flatly. "Give me until the next training weekend. If I don't bring anything up by then, you guys can assume that my little theory didn't pan out."

"But if it _does_ pan out?" Jasper prompted.

"Then I promise I'll tell you." I was resigned to the fact that, at some point, I was going to share what I knew about Edward, and I hoped that I'd be able to convince them to keep it to themselves. I just wanted to talk to Edward about it first, and I had no idea how to bring it up in casual conversation.

"Okay." Alice's tone was businesslike. "That gives you seven days, not counting the rest of today. Get it sorted, Bella. I like you. But if you're doing something that endangers yourself or the agency–"

"I'm not. Okay? I'm not." I checked her phone. "Listen, lunch ends in five minutes. We should go back to the building."

This time Jasper left first, and as soon as the car door shut behind him I leaned my seat back and closed my eyes. Alice didn't say anything, but something about her silence was expectant, so I decided to ask her something. "How did you and Jasper get together?"

I heard a rustle of fabric as Alice shrugged. "Not much of a story. He moved here – not because the agency sent him but because his mom wanted to be closer to _her_ mom – started school, wound up in my science class, and we were all invited to a party. Some random private high school guy there was trying to get in my pants and Jasper pulled me away. I was trying to kiss his cheek in thanks but he turned his head and I got mouth instead."

I snorted. "Total accident on your part, I'm sure."

"Shut up. Anyway, I blushed and ran away and avoided him for the rest of the week – which is what I was supposed to be doing according to protocol, remember – and then there was that awkward moment when we saw each other at the next training weekend. Of course, that meant there was no conflict of interest in our dating."

"And the rest is history?" I finished for her.

Alice nodded, then said, "Why do you ask? Wait, I know why you ask. And now _I_ need to get going."

Once she had left too, I readjusted my seat and pulled a granola bar out of my backpack. As I nibbled on it, I wondered about the coming weekend. I knew that Edward and I would have to finish the visual aids for the project, after which we would be pretty much done. Little butterfly wings began flapping in my stomach at the thought. Because, of course, being done with the project meant going on a date with him.

It would be my first date that was not somehow connected to an op. What was even proper date protocol? How much flirting was too much? How should I act? What would I wear?

I shook myself, got out of her car, and locked it, hurrying through the rain back to school. A rogue operative was following either me or Edward. Surely, I had bigger things to worry about than what shoes went with what outfit. I would do well to remember that.

**So this whole conflict of interest thing is getting hard for Bella to handle, huh? Let me know what you think.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Eight**

**Edward**

I'd been disappointed that I hadn't been able to find Bella in the lunchroom after fourth period, but I supposed that was just as well. I was sure I'd give Rosalie the vampire equivalent of an aneurysm if I chose not to sit with her and Emmett in favor of a different lunch companion.

I grinned darkly to myself as I registered the double entendre of my thoughts. Lunch companion indeed.

I could still remember, perfectly, every instant of holding Bella in my arms that morning. It had been brief, to be sure, and perfunctory on her part, but it had shown that she was beginning to trust me. And I wanted the trust of this human girl. I refused to look deeply into that wish, but I knew it was present, all the same.

"Are you with us, bro?"

Emmett's concerned voice pulled me from my reverie and I looked away from the window with a perfunctory smile and met my brother's tightened eyes. "Not really," I answered. "I'm sorry – did you say something?"

"You've been very quiet lately," Rosalie observed, curious. "Ever since you got home yesterday afternoon."

"Yes." I shifted, knowing I could phrase this in a way that wouldn't throw suspicion on Bella. "Actually, I need to tell you something, and I'd like your opinions before we go to Carlisle and Esme."

Emmett dropped his arm from the back of Rosalie's chair and leaned forward, intent on my face. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine." I waved an impatient hand. "It's not about me. Bella and I were at that crafts store Esme likes yesterday after school, and I looked out the window and saw Irina Alexandrovna – you remember her," he added to Rosalie. "You told Carlisle about her."

"Oh!" Rosalie nodded. "Yeah, the senior who moved away." Her eyes narrowed. "Why does it bother you that she came back to visit?"

I held her eyes, hoping that she would appreciate what I was about to tell her. "Because she's cut her hair. It's short now – it hits about her collarbone. And she's bleached it."

Rosalie looked her confusion for another moment, but Emmett straightened up sharply and brought a fist to his mouth. "Shit. Like the girl who was following Esme around?"

My gaze shifted to my brother and I nodded once. "Exactly like that girl."

"Why is a fucking teenager following us around?" Emmett tugged on his curly hair, his hand roughly running through it, glaring down at the table top briefly before his eyes snapped back up to mine. "Was she alone?"

"That I could see," I answered, frowning as I tried to remember. "She was moving fast and just glanced into the store before she walked down the street."

"Did the Bella girl see her?" Rosalie asked, even her interest piqued.

At that, I paused, because I really didn't know whether Bella had seen the blonde girl. I worded my response very carefully. "She wasn't at this school when Irina was. Irina moved away about a week before Bella enrolled, remember. She couldn't have recognized her." For some reason, I chose not to tell my brother and sister about the bizarre reaction Bella had had to Irina's name. That was something that I was going to ask her about, I was determined.

Neither of them noticed that I was dissembling; they were too worried. "Why didn't you tell us yesterday?" Rosalie demanded, one of her flashes of anger igniting in her eyes. "Damn it, Edward, this is important!"

"I know and I'm sorry," I replied, rubbing at the muscles in my neck. "I was just trying to understand it."

We were all silent for a moment, and I let the din from the rest of the cafeteria crash on around us. Again, my eyes darted around the room, looking for Bella more intently now. It was odd, now that I thought of it, that she wasn't present. I was about to search for Alice Brandon on instinct when Rosalie spoke again.

"Edward?"

"Yes?" He turned back to his sister.

Rosalie had her arms crossed tightly, playing with her fingertips on the tabletop, picking at the polish so that it slowly chipped off. Gently, Emmett took her hands in, but Rosalie kept glaring at me.

"Are you going to leave again?"

I exhaled, remembering my conviction earlier this week to do just that. I'd set it up perfectly, mentioning it casually to the one human who could be effected by it, and then I had backed out. "No, I'm not, at least not for a while," I replied unwillingly.

"Good. We need you here, and anyway, we can't have you upsetting Esme any more than you've been doing recently." Without giving me time to reply, she stood fluidly from the table and left, leaving her lunch tray for Emmett to deal with. He watched her go sadly, but didn't follow her.

"Sorry, Em," I muttered.

"Don't be. But I _am_ starting to really worry about you. Edward, is there anything I can do for you?"

I sighed at the intensity in his voice and was about to wave him off before I remembered something. "I actually need your advice about something, Em, but promise me you won't freak out."

It wasn't often that I used contemporary slang, and I had his attention. "Did you just say freak out?" When I rolled my eyes at him, he asked, "Why, what have you done?" It wasn't often that I came to him for advice. On the rare occasions when I needed help, I went to Carlisle.

"You're good with keeping the humans at bay," I started slowly, keeping my voice at the same low pitch it had held for the entire previous conversation. "Well… somehow, I got myself involved, loosely, with one of them."

"Bella Swan," Emmett said immediately, grinning hugely. "Thank God. You're finally admitting it."

Distracted momentarily, I glanced up at him. "You're not angry?"

Emmett shrugged. "Nah, it's just good to know what's up. You've been acting weird, like I said. You're not hunting regularly and you're not paying attention to anything around you. Stereotypical markers of a teenage crush, my brother. Carlisle didn't think you'd stoop to such a thing, especially not with a human, but I win."

I thought about cursing him out, but decided to just ignore that. I shrugged, trying not to let my grateful reaction to his words show on my face. "Look, it's just a promise I accidentally made and now I can't get out of it. It's going to be a one-time thing. Don't tell Esme, I'm begging you. Anyway, it's this weekend and I have no idea where to take her."

"Early dinner," was the first thing Emmett said. "Like, feed her around five or so, and that way you can get out of eating yourself. Say you had a late lunch or something. Actually, just skip the dinner entirely. You don't want to be puking it up later."

"Keep your voice down," I hissed, glancing furtively around. I did a brief double take; Jasper Whitlock had just entered the room, alone, his face grave. Fresh raindrops were sprinkled in his hair and on his clothing. He had just been outside, then.

Emmett was speaking again, and I had to pay attention. "So what have the two of you talked about so far?" he demanded, his words coming faster as he leaned forward across the table. "Like, what do you have in common?"

I shrugged. "Most of what we've talked about has involved this history project in some form or another. I mean, we had one conversation about music, but–"

"And are your tastes in music similar?" Em asked impatiently.

I smiled briefly as I thought of the unlabeled CD currently in my backpack. As promised, I'd had burned Bella a compilation of Angels and Airwaves, as well as throwing in some of my other favorites. "There's a little overlap, yes."

"So find some little club or something that has an alternative cover band or whatever playing and sneak in. God knows you have enough fake ID's, and if she doesn't have one of her own we can put her pictures on one of Rose's."

I raised my eyebrows. "And that won't be an awkward conversation. How am I supposed to tell her that we have a fake ID ready for her?"

"Don't be a moron," Emmett scolded, rolling his eyes, like he couldn't quite believe that he had to spell everything out for me. "You ask her during this class you have together if she has one already, and if she doesn't, offer her your older sister's old one. Not that difficult. And if she's morally opposed to fake ID's, then I'm sure there's some lame-ass teen club thing you can find."

The bell rang, nearly startling us both, and I was the first one out of my seat. "I'll see you later," he Emmett, ignoring him when he laughed.

"Good luck," he replied, and I nodded once in acknowledgement, noting that his enthusiasm was contagious. I could almost feel myself flushing as I made the usual trip to my locker, and from there to Berlenbach's classroom.

"Edward!" I heard Bella's voice call my name in the hallway just before I entered the classroom, and I smiled in response as I stepped out of the flow of traffic to enable her to catch up with me.

"Hello," I greeted her when she caught up to me, and escorted her into the classroom. As I did so, I noticed that her coat, like Jasper's, was sprinkled with raindrops.

Instinctively, my eyes sought out Alice, and she, too, had water in her hair and on her clothing.

Now, I knew that I lived in Seattle. I knew that it rained most of the time in the city. I knew that it was perfectly reasonable to expect that people got rainwater on their clothing every day. But I found it extremely hard to believe that these three particular humans, one of whom he'd seen entering the lunchroom late and the other two not at all, were covered in rain purely by coincidence.

I would ask Bella later… although I knew well enough by now that she wouldn't tell me anything. I sighed.

"What's wrong?" Bella asked, and I looked down at her and smiled at the concern in her eyes.

"Nothing. Listen, we–"

I was cut off by the teacher standing and ordering everyone to their seats just as the late bell rang. Bella flashed me one more quick smile before we both moved to our respective desks, and I couldn't stop myself from staring at the back of her head.

"Don't unpack," Berlenbach ordered his class, and the sounds of shuffling gradually died down. "Did I tell you people to unpack? Don't unpack. We are now one week away from the due date, people, and I hope that this will be more of a finishing-up period than anything else," he raised his eyebrows pointedly at a few groups, the members of which shifted uncomfortably, "but we're going to the library again. Come on."

My stomach lurched. The last time we had been in the library, Bella had peppered me with questions that were too dangerous to answer. I could only hope that she'd forgotten her dangerous curiosity by now.

**Bella**

This time, instead of waiting for Edward to come to me, I met him halfway. "So… this period is going to be pretty useless to us, isn't it?" I asked him, my tone conversational, but I was choking back laughter.

"Oh? How do you mean?"

I shrugged as we reentered the hallway, surrounded by our classmates. "We can't very well rehearse the presentation while other people are trying to work, and I didn't bring any of the craft material. Did you?"

"No," he answered slowly, "but we could always quietly read through the presen – oh." He stopped talking as he realized what I was trying to do. I huffed at him for taking too long to get it.

"Thank you." I nudged him with my elbow as we walked, fighting off a smile. "And here you thought you were the smart one in this pairing."

"I never said I was smarter than you," he instantly defended himself.

I laughed, because I could see in his face that he knew he wasn't being entirely truthful. "Not out loud, maybe. But I saw your face when our names were called last week, Edward, come on. You thought I was going to be a waste of your time." I waited for the chagrin to invade his face before I laughed. "It's okay. I mean, by now we both know that I'm smarter than you, so it's all good."

"Bella, I never meant to make you feel badly," he told me, his own serious tone a contrast to my laughter. "I just… I don't like group projects."

I shrugged. "Nobody likes group projects. But it's a moo point now."

"Er… you mean moot point?"

"Did you never see an episode of _Friends_?" I demanded, shocked. When Edward shook his head, bemused, I continued, "You know, it's like a cow's opinion… it doesn't matter… it's moo… Is this not ringing any bells?"

"Sorry, no." Edward was looking at me like he wasn't sure whether or not to laugh at me, but he had deeply offended me with his dearth of knowledge about sitcoms from the nineties, and he apparently saw that in my face. "Are you going to banish me from your society now?" he asked me, only half-joking. I hoped the expression on my face was vaguely frightening, and he began to falter under my stare.

I kept it up for another minute, then decided to let him off the hook. "Nah. You can stick around. But at some point I will make you watch at least one episode, okay?"

"Fine," he laughed, sounding a little relieved. "If you insist."

"I do insist." By that point, the class had reached the library, and I surreptitiously took his wrist and pulled him out of the flow of traffic into the room. As our classmates passed us, I muttered to myself, "How do you miss out on an American institution like that…"

From the corner of my eye, I thought I saw him scowl, but the expression was gone by the time I looked at him in full.

We walked into the library and, again, all the tables were full. This time it was Edward who led the way to the aisle full of reference books where we had sat days before, and I was very glad that Brynn and Triss seemed to have grabbed a table this time. I didn't want them staring at Edward, even if he didn't notice.

We made some concessions to keeping up appearances by dragging out books and our finished copy of the report, but then settled in to just talk. This time, Edward sat next to me without keeping my bag between us, but I noticed that he tucked his hands in the pockets of his jacket. "So what's our plan for the last parts of this project?" I asked him, drawing my knees up to my chest and wrapping my arms around my legs.

He shrugged. "We could work for a few hours after school today, but I don't really want to turn our corner of the library into a craft store, do you? So we could–"

"Come over to my house," I cut him off, reacting rather strongly to the way he had said 'our table.' His golden eyes snapped to mine. "My dad's working this afternoon, so he won't get home until late. It'll be easier to have access to stuff we'll need than it'd be in a Starbucks or whatever."

"Bella," he sighed, rolling his eyes. "Weren't you listening this morning? Starbucks is too mainstream."

I laughed at his teasing tone, wrinkling my nose a little. "So what do you think?"

"I don't have a problem with it," he told me. "But will it bother your mother?"

I snorted and waved my hand in dismissal. "My dad's single. And tomorrow afternoon we can just finish up, I guess."

Edward took a deep breath. "Well, let's make it tomorrow morning instead. After all, if we do finish tomorrow, I'm obligated to take you out, remember?"

"Only if you want to." My voice was much quieter as she winced at that word. _Obligated_.

He noticed. "I didn't mean it like that, Bella. I'm actually really looking forward to it."

I cocked my head to the side and studied his eyes, and he met my gaze without flinching. After a moment, I nodded, satisfied. "Okay."

"I have something for you," he said, suddenly. He reached down to open his backpack and pulled out a CD. "For you. Angels and Airwaves, as well as some other stuff I thought you'd like."

"Thank you!" I took the disc with a smile and flipped the case over to read the track listing on the back. "Who the hell is Bat for Lashes?"

"Give her a chance," he laughed. "You might be pleasantly surprised."

"This coming from you." I raised my eyebrows as I tucked the disc away. He shrugged, apologetic. "So what exactly are we doing tomorrow?"

"Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that." Edward pulled out his phone and opened the web browser. "I was thinking we could go listen to some music?"

"Is someone I know playing?" I asked, interested, shifting closer to him to better see his phone's screen. I felt it when my shoulder brushed his. I wanted to lower my head to his shoulder again.

"Erm." He cleared his throat. "Actually, I was thinking we'd just see if any alternative rock cover bands were playing at any clubs."

I frowned. "This is going to involve a fake ID."

"You could use one of our older sister's?" he offered. "Rosalie kept all of hers. All I'd need is a picture of you."

"Thanks, but I have one. I've just never used one in Washington before." It wouldn't matter if I used one of my CIA-issued ID's, even if it was an old one from Arizona. It had never caused me problems in an airport, even when I was just fifteen, so why should it matter here? Besides, I didn't see how Edward proposed to get me an ID in the space of twenty-four hours. "Where were you thinking for food?"

"Well," Edward said as he continued to browse clubs on his phone, "have you been to Pike's Place?"

"Um, who's Pike?"

This time, Edward's look of incredulity wasn't faked, I could tell. "I know you just moved here, but Pike's Place is usually the first place that people go when they come to Seattle."

"Sorry to be atypical," I shrugged. "So what is it?"

"It's rather like a permanent open-air market. It's just off First Street, right next to the Sound. I think you'll like it. Oh, look," he held his phone out to her so that I could see better. "Band called And See, She Flies. That doesn't sound too pretentious, does it?"

I scooted closer to Edward and finally rested my chin on his shoulder, silently rejoicing when he didn't move to shift her. Twice in one day – I would take that. "They bill themselves as alternative punk," I observed, trying to keep my voice steady. "That's a new one."

"Mmm." He made the noise of agreement deep in his throat, but didn't say anything else.

I took his phone but did not shift away from his body as I scrolled through the web page. "Looks like the place is called _Thirty-ten_. Weird. Do you know it?"

"Emmett and Rose have been there a few times. He says they likes it." Edward's hands clenched into fists on his knees and I almost asked him why, but then he said, "So does all of that sound good to you?"

"Well, I'm not a huge seafood fan, but I guess, for you, I could try to like it," I smiled up at him as I gave his phone back. "How much money should I carry tomorrow?"

Edward frowned. "None. I'm paying."

"No, you're not." I cocked an eyebrow. "I mean, you're paying for _you_, but I'm paying for me. Don't pull that trust fund baby crap, either."

"Bella," Edward sighed, resting his head back against the bookshelves without breaking eye contact. "No. My mother would skin me alive if I didn't pay for you. Besides, I want to do it."

I was about to continue arguing, but then bit my lower lip, considering an alternative. "How about this," I proposed, "I'll have my wallet on me, and whoever pounces on the check first gets to pay it. Deal?"

"Fine," he grinned down at me, "but you'll lose."

"Wanna bet?" I challenged.

"Certainly. I bet you the cost of dinner."

At that, I laughed and returned my head to his shoulder. "You're insufferable."

"My apologies."

We paused, and slowly Edward's hands relaxed. I was glad to see it, even as I wondered why. Was my scent making him uncomfortable or something? At least my hair was down so my neck was covered.

"Did you go out for lunch?" he asked suddenly.

I sat up, even though I didn't want to. My breathing tightened, even as I tried to keep my expression smooth. "No. Why?"

He shrugged and nodded at the dark dots on my coat. "You have fresh raindrops on your clothes and in your hair. I was just curious." He studied my face, like he was waiting for the slip.

"Oh. Yeah, I had to run to my car to get something." It was close enough to the truth that it didn't register on my face. Edward nodded, but not like he was satisfied.

We talked for the rest of the period about music we both enjoyed, books, and finally films. Edward appeared surprised when I told him that one of my favorite movies was _Dead Poets Society_. "Why is that weird?" I asked.

He shook his head. "It's not, really. I've just never met a girl who likes that film. Rosalie hates it."

I frowned. "I can't imagine why. It's like God in terms of coming-of-age stories." The bell rang, and he helped me to my feet and I asked him, "Do you want to follow me home after school?"

He shook his head. "I have to go home and get the craft materials, and I have to drop off Rosalie and Emmett. I should be there by three thirty, though, if that's all right."

"Sure." We left the library and joined the crowd in the hallways. "I'll see you then, okay?"

"Of course." He hesitated before heading for his last class, and I took the opportunity to hug him again, only this time it was different. This time, instead of wrapping my free arm around his waist, I held my breath, reached up, and slipped it around his neck. I stood on my tiptoes, making me just the right height for my cheek to brush the skin of his throat.

So carefully, Edward slid his arms around my waist, but did not draw my body any farther into his. She thought she heard his breaths hitch, and then, abruptly, he released me and forced a smile. But I saw the sudden tension in his golden eyes, and had to ask again: "So three thirty?"

The only reply was his nodding once and walking away. I watched him stride to the end of the hall, turn the corner, and disappear.

I wandered slowly towards my last class, still feeling the impact from when the reminder had slammed into me. Edward was not human. He was not human, and without realizing it I had been flirting with his demonic side all afternoon. Loving him or not, I could not be that close to him. If he killed me, not even Jasper's cynicism would stop him and Alice from putting the pieces together, and they would work out what Edward was. I would not endanger Edward like that. I scolded myself, firm. I couldn't make it harder for him than it had to be this weekend – I would let him lead. Always, let him lead.

I was so distracted that I didn't notice the blonde – there was no other word for her – bombshell until I literally walked into her. "Oh, I'm sorry," I said automatically as the girl turned to face me, hatred in her golden eyes.

"Watch where you're going," she snapped, taking the moment of her recovery to study me. She was much taller than me, but from one glance I could tell that her musculature was nowhere near as defined as mine. That was made up for, though, by a face that was the envy of supermodels everywhere: full, pouty lips; sculpted, regal cheekbones; high, arched brows. I couldn't make any assessments on the beauty of her eyes, given the absolute rage that was emanating from them. "We've never met," the girl said coldly once I had fully recovered, "but I'm Rosalie Hale, Edward's sister."

"Oh! Oh, hi," I stammered, shifting my books so that I could hold out my right hand, trying to ignore the fire in Rosalie's face. "I'm–"

"I know who you are," she hissed, glaring at me. "Stay the hell away from my brother."

"Um… sorry?" The question was a cop-out. What I really wanted to do was narrow my own eyes at her, get up in her face, and snap something about what the hell made her think she had the right to tell me what to do. "Um, yeah, we have a project to get done together."

Rosalie laughed at that, but it was completely devoid of mirth. "Don't use that excuse. And don't ever speak to any member of my family ever again. We have enough problems to deal with without you."

"Okay, back off," I retorted, knowing I was making a scene and not really caring. "I'll leave Edward alone when he tells me to leave him alone. Until then, it's none of your damn business. By the way, Emmett likes me."

The look of pure venom Rosalie shot me at that made her nothing less than an avenging angel, and then she shoved her way past me and strutted down the hallway, the other students making a path for her. I was reminded of the way that all the dignitaries had parted for Dominika Agrafena last week – not because they respected her, but because they feared her. For my part, I turned around and simply went to class.

But why the threat in her tone? Had she guessed that I knew what she and her family were and feared my exposing them? Had _Edward_ guessed that I knew what they were, and had he imparted his fears to Rosalie? But if he did know that I knew, shouldn't he be taking pains to avoid me?

Sixth period was well underway before the last realization struck me. Rosalie had allowed me to walk into her and brushed past me very closely in the hallway. And none of the sudden tension that had seemed to flood Edward when she hugged him was evident in her features. _Her_ tension, I was sure, was purely from anger.

But his…

That must mean, I thought, the exultation beginning a slow burn somewhere below my stomach, that Edward's tension had nothing to do with his being a vampire, and everything to do with my hug.

**Edward**

Sitting in my sixth period class quietly, without leaping up and speeding from the room to lose myself in the forest, was one of the hardest things I had ever done. Over and over, Bella's hug kept replaying behind my eyes, no matter how hard I tried to focus on something, anything, else.

So carefully, I had slid my arms around her waist, but did not dare draw her body any farther into mine. The sensation of her warm breath on the skin over my collarbone, even through the cotton of my shirt, made my own breathing catch. She was so warm… so warm, I could almost feel her pulse thrumming beneath her flesh…

_No_.

I forced myself to release her quickly and somehow managed a smile, praying that she wouldn't notice anything amiss. But I knew Bella saw the sudden tautness in my eyes, and had to ask again: "So three thirty?"

I saw her lips move, but it was a moment before her voice reached my ears. All I could gather was a nod before I had to walk away. I had to get away from her. The urge to take her in my arms again, to crush her body to mine, was too strong. And I did not know for what purposes I wanted her body so close – whether it was simply to feel her warmth or to snap her head back, expose the skin of her neck, and…

I couldn't think of it. I _wouldn't_ think of it.

_It's Bella_, I reminded myself viciously as I blindly shoved my way through the humans in the halls, not caring where I was going or whom I pushed. _It's her. It's not some random girl off the street… you can't hurt her. It's Bella. It's Bella_.

The words were my mantra. I hoped they would be enough to sustain me.

**So you all should follow me on twitter. Lily_Cullen. I just started and I think it's fun. Maybe I'll post spoiling things. That sounds fun. And I will follow you back.**

**Also. Review things. You people are quiet.**


	9. Chapter 9

Edward

I had no idea what the hell I was doing, a sensation that was becoming all too familiar to me.

As I pulled my car up to the curb in front of Bella's house and prepared to park it, I took one more deep breath, reminding myself that it wasn't too late, I could still leave, finish the project alone, and call it a day. Bella's grade would be intact and I wouldn't have to sit under her warm, curious eyes and continue to risk everything that Carlisle had spent a lifetime building.

My hand shook on the gearshift. And I slid it into park before shutting off the engine and stepping out of the car.

Once I'd retrieved my own school bag and the bundle of school supplies from the back seat of my car, I advanced slowly up the walk to the house's front door, similar to the manner in which Aragorn approached the Paths of the Dead: determinedly, but with an inherent fear of what he must then do.

Shaking off that rather depressing simile, I mounted the porch steps and knocked on the front door. I heard a rustling from inside the house, followed by a male voice I did not recognize shouting, "_Bella, do you expect me to get that?_"

I bit back a smile as I picked out Bella's even vaguer reply: "_I'm just out of the shower – do you want me to go down there in a towel_?"

Flashes of porcelain skin covered in beads of water flashed through my mind, but I forced them away, clearing my throat and composing myself in time for the door to swing open. A mustachioed man of average height looked me up and down with raised eyebrows. "You must be Edward," he said, opening the door wider and stepping aside. "I'm Charlie Swan, Bella's dad. Come on in."

"Thank you." I smiled politely in reply, stepping over the threshold only to linger awkwardly in the foyer of the house. Charlie rolled his eyes, and suddenly I could see Bella in his face. "Kid, you're supposed to walk into the living room and sit down." Chuckling to himself, he led me down the short stretch of hallway and entered the living room with me not far behind. I noticed bemusedly that Charlie was rejoicing in the fact that his daughter was doing something as blessedly normal as having a boy over to study, and I didn't understand why. It wasn't as if Bella had no friends. But Charlie did a good job of covering his joy up as he seated herself in an armchair and turned expectantly to me.

"So you and Bella are in the same history class, then?"

"Yes, sir." I shifted in my seat. Why did this feel so awkward? I had conversed with human men before, God knew, I had mastered the art of small talk. "This project is all her, though."

"Shut up," Bella's voice sang out behind me as I was enveloped in her scent. Slowly I turned, not knowing why I moved with such deliberation, to see her stomping down the stairs. She was wearing a plain dark sweatshirt and black running shorts with her hair up in a sloppy ponytail. Her feet were bare. Somehow, she looked younger than I had ever seen her. Her smile lit her whole face when her eyes landed on me and she self-consciously lifted a hand to brush the flyaways that had escaped her ponytail from her face.

"Bells," Charlie scolded. "Is that how you talk to your friends?"

"Yes," Bella returned without pause, lifting my bag of craft materials up into her arms and winking at me. I smiled back, trying to ignore the lurch of disappointment that passed through my heart. _Friends_. "Come on," Bella urged me and I rose, expecting to be led to the kitchen table. But when Bella started for the staircase again, I hesitated. I had never been in the bedroom of any girl other than Rosalie, and then never without Emmett present. "Edward? You coming or what?"

"Er – y-yes," I stuttered before turning quickly back to Charlie. He was staring at the two of them with a grin hidden beneath his mustache, and it wasn't until I had taken three steps after Bella did he remember himself.

"Bella, I want that door open, you understand?"

Bella snorted and did not reply. Grinning to myself at her reaction, I followed silently.

I didn't know what I was expecting of her bedroom, but the light, airy space seemed to fit her somehow. It was at the corner of the house and as such had windows on two perpendicular walls. Those walls were white, the bedding light purple, and all the furniture a blond wood that I could not name on sight.

Bella plopped down on the floor of the room, reaching to tug her own bookbag towards her. Carefully, I seated myself cross-legged so that I was facing her as she picked up a remote from the bedside table and pointed it at the iPod dock on a shelf across the room. Seconds later, music from the CD I had made for her filled the room.

I smiled. "So you like it, then?"

She nodded happily and pulled her history notes and book out of the bookbag. "I do, yeah. It surprised me, actually. I approve of your face, Edward Cullen."

I snorted my laughter. "You approve of my face?"

Bella nodded decisively, but then stopped, a furious blush flooding her face. But she kept going, trying to salvage the moment, it seemed. "Yes, duh. And I also approve of your taste in music. Now can we please get to work before I say something else stupid?"

This time, I could not stop myself from laughing aloud. "Not stupid," I contradicted. "Unplanned."

Bella raised her eyebrows. "Word-vomit."

"Spontaneous," I countered, feeling the corners of my mouth twitch up.

"Graceless."

"Adorable." The word was out before I could think.

At that, Bella opened her mouth, then shut it, ducking her head so that I wouldn't see her blush rise again. I smiled in triumph as she cleared her throat. "Let's be productive."

I nodded and we spread our materials out in front of us on the floor, deciding that, since I had neater handwriting, I would hand-letter the poster and other visual aids while she put together the more artistic aspects of the display. We worked quietly and efficiently, eventually losing ourselves in the mindless task while the music played in the background.

Until Bella began to feel stiff from sitting in the same position for too long. At first, all it took to alleviate the discomfort was for her to lean back against her bed and fully extend her legs in front of her, but that eventually made her back sore, and she couldn't seem to get a handle on the clipboard. So she pulled a pillow from her bed and propped herself up on it as she lay on her stomach, kicking her legs up in the air.

I swallowed hard as my eyes locked on the toned, pale skin before me. I already knew that she ran six miles a day, and so it should not have surprised mehat there was not an ounce of fat anywhere on her legs, but I wasn't expecting the suggestion of grace, of power, that they carried to leave me breathless. When Bella bent both her knees and crossed her ankles in the air, her sweatshirt rode up slightly on her torso, exposing the tiniest sliver of skin on her back.

I cleared my throat and looked away. Bad enough that I was spending time in her presence at all – that I was letting her too close – I didn't have to endanger her by considering the exquisite shape of her body. Because I knew better than most how easily a thought could become an action. And so these were thoughts I could not allow myself, because the resultant actions…. I couldn't have Bella that close. She wouldn't survive it.

And I wouldn't survive _that_.

Unbidden, a shudder shook my frame at the thought of Bella… _ending_. Ceasing to be. I would not think the word _death_ in conjunction with her, I couldn't.

That was when I knew that any prayer I'd had of slowly phasing Bella out of my life was over. The pressure on my heart, the _pain_ I suddenly felt at the thought of the end of her existence stunned me, and I knew that, somehow, I was tied to her in a way that I didn't understand.

The thought should have terrified me. But for now, all I could think of was what I could do to ensure that Bella was safe for as long as possible, without removing myself from her life.

Between Bella's focus on the project and my quiet brooding beside her, we finished our work less than two hours later in near-silence. I jumped when Bella slammed a book shut, a satisfied smirk on her face. "Win."

I forced a laugh and avoided her eyes. I knew that my newfound intensity would be written all over my face, and I couldn't bear to let her see it yet. I needed to get out, to calm down, to talk to Carlisle. It was time he knew. I wasn't quite sure how the afternoon ended – I did know I agreed to leave everything with Bella so that she could bring it to school on Monday, I did know that I politely said my good-byes to Charlie, I did know that I confirmed that I was picking Bella up at five the following afternoon. But the only part that was clear in my mind was her hug.

She'd walked me to the front door and had followed me out to my car, although the rain had started pouring down again and I tried to make her stay inside. But as we stood side by side next to the driver's door of my car, the water coming down in torrents around us, I could still clearly see her eyes.

They shone so brightly, overflowing with something I could not name, but wanted to know. I opened my car and dropped my bag inside before turning back to her. I stepped forward and we moved in synchrony: her arms moving up to wrap around my neck, mine slipping around her, cradling her waist. I held her so tightly, my chin resting on her shoulder, breathing in her scent mixed with the clean, violent rainwater. Her breath was warm on my ear; her body seemed to vibrate in my arms. Her pulse thrummed beneath her skin.

But she would catch cold from staying out in the rain for too long. Gently I pulled back from her, reaching up to brush her now-soaking hair back from her face as she'd done earlier. I released her, feeling the cold on the front of my body when she stepped away. "So I'll see you tomorrow, Bella."

"Yeah," she replied, shaking her head as if to clear it and dislodging a few raindrops that had stuck to her lashes. "Yeah. See you then."

But she stood still for another moment until she seemed to remember that she should be moving, then started and turned for her front porch. I opened the driver's door of my car but didn't get in yet, waiting until she had climbed those steps and was back inside before taking my seat. I drove away quietly, but pulled over before I left the suburbs and dug my telephone out of my jacket pocket. Carlisle was my first speed-dial contact.

"Edward? Are you all right?"

"Are you home?" I asked him without answering his question. There was so much to be said, but it all had to be in person.

After Carlisle confirmed that yes, he was at home; I hung up without another word. I did not know how he would react to what I had to say. Surely a part of him would be disappointed, but the prevalent emotion would be joy – maybe. Selfishly, I hoped it would be so that he would ignore the risk of exposure.

But… it was possible… Carlisle wouldn't fear exposure at all, because he would want Bella to become a part of my world. A permanent part.

My fingers clenched around the steering wheel. I wanted it… God, I wanted it. But not if Bella didn't want it too. I would never take that choice away from her, I vowed to myself. I would never take away her choice about her life, either way.

The bruises on her neck from weeks ago rose unbidden to my mind. But if I was faced with her imminent death…

I shut the thought down viciously. Nothing was going to happen to her.

Carlisle was not the only one in the house when I got there; Esme was with him. When I entered my father's study, he looked up at me with concern in his eyes. "You sounded abrupt on the phone. I told Rosalie and Emmett to go out."

"Edward, sweetheart, please sit down," Esme urged me, reaching for my hand.

I nodded. "Thank you." Slowly taking a seat in front of the desk, I ran a hand over my face. "Carlisle… I don't know where to start."

"Perhaps if I started for you?" he offered, sitting in his own chair. Esme looked at him curiously. When I shrugged, he continued. He took a seat across from me, his wise face full of compassion. "All right, Edward. You know I love you. You are a blessed mixture of brother and son to me, and maybe that's why I always push you so far about finding your own happiness. But think of this… You've never been so preoccupied by a human before."

"I just wanted to figure her out," I defended weakly, wondering why I was even bothering.

Esme waved an impatient hand. "That's not true. There have been plenty of girls in the past you've been unable to _figure out_, and you've never, not once, cared. So, what is it about this girl, Edward? That's a rhetorical question," she hurried to add with a smile, seeing that I was about to interrupt. "The answer is simple. You love her."

I balked. I had finally admitted to myself that I admired Bella and enjoyed her company, that I cared about her, but _love_? I couldn't love her. She wasn't one of my kind.

"Esme, no," I mumbled, shaking my head without being aware of the action, my eyes wide on hers. "I don't love her. She's just…"

"Just what?" Carlisle asked gently, unfazed by my denial. I saw in his thoughts that he believed that Esme was right. He had expected it. He knew me better than anyone else did. "All right, you don't love her. Convince me."

And without hesitation, I tried. I told them everything, from seeing Bella slip out of the school during lunch on her first day to meet with Amber and Ian, to the conversation I had overheard as I stood on her front porch, to the bruises, to her strange absences, to her bizarre reaction to seeing Christina. I told my parents everything and they sat silently and let me, not interrupting even when I had to interrupt himself to retell a part with more clarity. Several times I ran a hand through my hair, I shifted in his seat, I tugged at the sleeves of my still-wet jacket, but I did not stop talking until the end.

After I had described Bella's hug goodbye from that afternoon in painstaking detail, I looked up again. Esme looked as if she would be weeping, were it possible. "Oh, Edward," she breathed, a smile spreading across her face. "Were you listening to yourself? At all?"

I exhaled heavily, looking past her to the rain that was still lashing the window. "Esme, I can't love her. It will destroy her, you have to know that!"

"Why?" Elisabeth gasped, her face a picture of shock. "If you love her, then–"

"Then nothing. I don't," I cut her off, standing. "Thank you for your time, both of you."

Carlisle stood as I headed for the door. "Edward, wait. Why did you come in here to tell us all of this if it wasn't because of how you feel about her?"

"I… I don't know," I stuttered, the unfamiliar feeling of being trapped creeping over him, trying to block out his thoughts. "I want to fall in love with her, but I just can't."

Carlisle approached me and I did not flinch away. "Why can't you?"

"It's wrong… I can't do that to her. If I love her, if I let her love me, she could find out, Carlisle. Either she'll have to find out, and then she'll want to leave me, or…." I had to pause to inhale against the twist my heart gave. "Or she'll want to be one of us."

My mother looked at me blankly. "Well, of course," she stated. "Isn't that how this ends?"

"_No,_" I hissed. "I can't make that choice for her."

"Can't she make it for herself?" Esme asked.

I paced to the opposite end of the room and back again. Carlisle had fallen silent, watching us both intently. He had sworn to himself that Emmett was to be his last; he would never change another human. But in his thoughts, I could see that he would be willing to help me change Bella, if it came to that. "Not unless she understood what she was giving up," I finally replied to Esme. "And how can she ever understand that without living it? You can't make decisions like that without having all the life experience necessary to accurately judge all the consequences–"

"And no human has that when they first ender this life," Esme reminded me.

"Hardly any humans choose this! Why would they?"

Esme approached me and took my face in her hands. "_For love_," she said, fixed on my expression. "Do you not remember Rosalie coming to us for Emmett?"

"That wasn't Emmett's choice; it was Rosalie's. That was different." I bit the words off.

"But it wasn't." She dropped her hands back to her sides. "What is it about yourself that you think so unworthy, Edward? This girl, if you truly love her, you will consider her your equal and trust her judgement."

"She can't judge what she doesn't know," I retorted, and left the room. This time, neither of them called me back.

I went up to my room and slammed the door before going to my CD collection and pulling out My Chemical Romance's second album. I turned the stereo up as loud as it could go before flopping backwards on my couch. Despite how my conversation with Carlisle and Esme had degenerated, I did want to think about what they had said.

I did not love Bella, but I knew that I could. So easily.

When I thought of her smile, her laugh, the way her eyes would sharpen when she was focused on something, I had to swallow hard, and it was not to rid myself of excess venom. She wasn't anything like the other teenage girls around her, and I wondered what had changed her, what had made her so intense, so different from the rest of them. Why did she rarely smile without a bite of cynicism behind it? Why was she so hesitant to trust, and yet why did she seem to have such a lack of self-preservation?

I wanted to know all of this, and for the first time in my life, the primary motivator behind a quest for knowledge wasn't my family's safety. I just wanted to know this girl.

But I did not love her. That was not a line I would cross.

**Bella**

I was useless the next morning. I was trying to get ahead on my calculus homework, because I never knew when I'd have to go to Langley and therefore not be able to do it, but my mind kept wandering ahead to that night. Edward had said very little about what we were doing that night, only that we would be starting early. My theory was that something… _vampy_, for lack of a better word, would happen to him as night fell. I didn't care.

There was a tingling under my skin that I'd never felt before, and I wasn't sure what to do with it. I'd seen enough teenybopper movies to know that this was the part of the story where the heroine calls her fun, slightly ditzy best friend, who then comes over so they can do each other's nails and have a fast-paced conversation about how the boy is perfect for the heroine and she'll have no problem winning his heart. But the closest thing I had to a best friend was Alice, and Alice definitely was not ditzy. Besides, I was sure that if Alice and Jasper found out exactly how excited I was about a date with Edward, a civilian and also possibly a vampire, they would kill me. If not literally, then definitely figuratively.

Finally abandoning my homework, I put on some music – again the CD that Edward had made for me – and went to my closet. I had very few sexy clothes, I noted with distaste. Why did I have so few sexy clothes?

Oh, right. Because I had to spend her life blending in.

My Arizonan sensibilities wouldn't let me consider wearing a mini skirt; it was freezing outside. Unless I paired a simple black skirt with thick tights… and boots… where were my cute boots, the ones with the wedge heel? Not the rain boots, the other ones. Okay, black skirt, plum-colored tights, black boots. Top? Which top… no more black. But nothing went with the color of the tights. Oh, I had this lace-edged camisole that was almost the same color as the tights, and then I could put that under this black blouse. Okay. That sounded like a plan.

This would be my first normal date. Well… however normal a date with a vampire could be. I smiled to myself.

There was a simple reason why Edward's being a vampire – for now I was certain that he was a vampire – no longer bothered me: I trusted him. And it wasn't just because I would certainly be dead by now if he wanted me dead. He smiled at me with his eyes, and I could fluster him when I had the feeling that nothing had flustered him in a long time. Also, assuming that my vampire theory was correct, he had just as much to lose as I did by dating me, and yet he couldn't seem to stop himself.

I wanted to prove to him that he could trust me. That I would never do anything that would endanger him.

I hadn't told Charlie what I was doing that night because he would question my judgement. I would just disappear for a few hours – he was used to it. On one level, I felt bad about effectively abusing my status as a CIA operative to sneak around on my dad, but not bad enough to do anything about it.

If Charlie thought that I was acting oddly that day, he didn't say anything. He was used to his daughter being overly tense. But when the doorbell rang at five o'clock, he got to the door before I did.

"Edward?" Charlie asked, forgetting to actually let him in. I heard him and froze, then quickly tugged on my last boot and flew for the stairs. "Bella didn't say you were coming back today."

"Um… well," Edward stuttered, clearly at a loss as to how to reply.

Luckily, I rushed down the stairs just then. "Dad, I forgot to tell you…"

My breath caught at the sight of him. I had only ever seen him in jeans and t-shirts or workout clothing, but now, he looked like a dark angel. He was in dark jeans and a white button down shirt, over which he'd put a leather jacket. His coat hung over his arm.

As I told my father that we were going to hang out and I'd be back way later so don't wait up, Edward shoved his hands into his coat pockets, shifting nervously.

Charlie's eyes were worried as I shrugged into a coat and bustled myself and Edward out the door, but he only had time to call out, "Have fun and be careful!"

Once the front door shut behind them, I turned to Edward. "Hi, by the way," I said, blushing slightly.

He smiled at me, almost as if he were shy. "Hello. You… you look great."

The blush deepened, and I looked down. "Thank you. So where are we eating again?"

"Right." Aware that a rainfall earlier that day had left puddles everywhere, he took my elbow and guided my to his car, looking over at me when I huffed a laugh. "What?"

"My dad is probably peeking at us out the front window," I murmured without glancing back at the house. Casually, Edward looked over his shoulder and grinned when the front window's curtain, indeed, twitched.

"Is she always that protective?" he asked.

"Nah," I shrugged, her eyebrows raising when Edward opened his car door for me. "Thanks, by the way." I waited until he had circled the car and slid into the driver's seat before I asked. "So where are we going again?"

Edward smiled as he pulled away from the curb, directing the car towards downtown. "Dinner and dancing."

"You make us sound old."

Edward's eyebrows twitched as he segued onto the freeway. "Well, I'm a legal adult, which means that until I want to run for president, age no longer matters. I don't know about you."

"What about alcohol?"

"Oh, all right, if we pretend alcohol laws actually stop anybody."

And with that, the easy banter that we usually had resurfaced, pulling us both in. Edward only kept his eyes on the road about half the time, and my head seemed to be permanently turned to the left, my eyes on his face as I laughed with him.

When we arrived downtown, he parked in a pay-by-the-hour garage and I insisted on splitting the fee with him. We walked down Pike Street to the Market, which backed up to the Sound and never seemed to shut down entirely. "Is it true that part of _Sleepless in Seattle_ was filmed here?" I asked, not really caring.

Edward nodded. "Yeah, the Chinese restaurant that they eat at is on the lower level. But that's not where we're going."

Instead, he led me to a fresh fish and chowder place, and we were in and out within an hour. I noticed with interest that Edward ordered a salmon filet with light sauce. Maybe strong flavors were even stronger for him? And he ate it all, I saw.

Interesting, but I wouldn't dwell on it. Not when the white light of the streetlamps reflected off the water of the Sound turned his eyes from gold to the deep color of cognac as we walked along the Sound after we had finished eating. From where we stood, I could see the pier where we had met accidentally weeks ago, where he had noticed my bruises and wanted to protect me. Unconsciously, my hand reached up to touch the skin where those bruises had long faded.

"Hey," Edward's soft voice broke through to me as he reached up and took my hand, twisting his fingers with mine and bringing our hands back down between them. "Where did you go?"

I flashed him a smile and squeezed his fingers. "Nowhere. Sorry." After a pause in which he eyed me skeptically, I amended, "Okay, I was just thinking about… remember when we first got that assignment? For the Kennedy project?"

"Of course." He waited.

"It's just… and now we're here," I gestured around them, as if something about the edge of Pike's Place Market encompassed our bizarre relationship. "Did you ever think–"

"No," he cut me off, something closing off in his eyes. He must have seen the hurt that flashed across my expression at his abruptness, and he released my hand, only to curl an arm around my shoulders. "But I'm glad it did."

I nodded, although not entirely convinced. But I relished the weight of his arm around my shoulder as we walked back up the hill that sloped towards the Sound so that we could get the car and head up into the Capitol Hill District, where the club Edward had found was located. It was called The Black Lodge and was the kind of place where one could feel the bass outside and need a fake ID, whether or not you planned on drinking. The bouncer let us in with no trouble, and, since I was ahead of Edward in the line, I managed to pay both our cover charges. "Bella," he snapped at me.

I looked up innocently. "What?" I asked, smiling widely when he just sighed and shook his head.

It was dark inside, and we couldn't find a table. Because the only light sources were the colored ones coming from the stage, and the amps and the other attendees were creating a wall of sound, Edward had to stand directly behind me and rest his chin on my shoulder so that he could hear me. At least, that's what I tried to pretend for about ten seconds before he wound his arms around my waist. I felt the inhibitions he'd been carrying all evening fall away. It might have been the darkness and the noise and the feeling of anonymity, but he shifted his head so that his cheek brushed mine as I leaned my head back on his shoulder.

The opening band was still playing, so we were content to hang out at the back of the audience area, watching everyone – the drunk and the sober – make idiots out of themselves as they stage-dove into the crowd and sung loudly and off-key. I laughed as a particularly inebriated young man mounted the stage and slung his arm around the shoulders of the band's frontman, who neatly dislodged himself and then pushed the guy off the stage and back into the crowd, which barely managed to catch him.

"I'll pay you twenty bucks if you–" I started, but Edward pressed a hand over my lips before I could finish the sentence. His hand felt cold, and his flesh was smoother than I'd been expecting.

"Absolutely not."

I turned my head to face him, and his hand slipped from my mouth to cup my neck while his other arm tightened around my midsection. My breath felt heavy in my mouth as his eyes met mine and his fingers slowly trailed up my cheek to brush a strand of hair out of my eyes. I thought I saw his eyes dart down to my lips, but just then the opening band left the stage in a storm of applause and the next act – And See, She Flies – was announced.

"Should we move up?" he asked, too quickly. I just nodded and followed him as he took my hand and led me forward.

We found ourselves in the middle of the crowd, and Edward wrapped one arm around my waist simply so he wouldn't lose track of her in the extremely active, screaming group of people around them. Luckily, I was strong enough to not be swallowed up, but I slipped my own arm around Edward too. He smiled.

The band played a decent amount of original songs as well as their covers, but their youth – the frontwoman didn't look any older than twenty – meant that they didn't have much of a following in Seattle yet. All the same, the members had a decent sense of humor and were able to banter back and forth for most of the set, and interacted well with the audience. Most of the crowd, me included, sang along with the covers they recognized.

Despite how much fun I was having, or perhaps because of it, I was all too aware of it when his hand slipped lower on my body, moving from my waist to my hip. I faced him as the band started a new cover, a song from 30 Seconds to Mars's third album. "Are you okay?"

He just nodded, his breathing picking up as he took another step towards me and put his other hand on my hip too. A half-smile lit his face as I placed my hands on the back of his neck, his bronze hair slipping through my fingers. It wasn't really dance music, but it had a more sensual beat than much of 30 Seconds to Mars's work, and sung in a female voice that lushness was exaggerated. The rest of the crowd was responding as well, pushing closer to each other, to the stage.

During the bridge of the song, one of Edward's hands moved up from my hips, back to my waist, finally coming to rest between my shoulder blades. I couldn't breathe. I could feel my pulse thrumming through me, but Edward seemed to pay it no mind. His dark eyes gleamed, seemingly full of secrets and promises.

He leaned close to me, his lips brushing my ear, and whispered, "We shouldn't."

_Honest to God, I will break your heart_

My nose skimmed along his cheekbone as I murmured my reply. "We already have."

_Tear you to pieces, rip you apart_

Slowly, Edward drew back to look at me, and I knew then that it was over. He leaned closer to me, but hesitated. Feeling as if my heart had become lodged somewhere behind my collarbones, used the hands that were still resting on his neck to draw his face closer to mine.

Edward brushed his lips to mine, and I felt his cool breath ghost across my face, and shut my eyes. His hands pulled me in again and I pressed our lips together, parting my own to take his top one between them. I sighed a smile and wrapped my arms around him, hardly aware that we were being whistled at by the few audience members who had noticed what was going on. I just went on kissing Edward, and felt him kiss me back, until all my thoughts stopped, save for the one that was telling me that I was home.


	10. Chapter 10

**Ten**

**Bella**

Edward didn't call me at all on Sunday, and I wasn't sure what to make of that. Several times, I picked up my own phone and selected his number from my contacts list, but couldn't bring myself to hit send. Had he not had a good time? It had seemed like he had – better than good, actually. We had spend the rest of the band's set wrapped in each other's arms, paying only nominal attention to the music, and had left as soon as the show ended. But he hadn't taken me home. Instead, we had gone to Cal Anderson Park, a public part a few blocks away from Seattle Central Community College and Seattle University, a small private school. There was a large fountain in the park which looked rather like a volcano spewing water into a shallow but very long rectangular pool. Edward had sat on a bench and pulled me down beside him. We said nothing, simply watching the water splash and listening to its sound, almost like laughter. Edward's hand had remained on my waist, his thumb tracing lazy circles on the fabric of my shirt under my coat as I lay my head on his shoulder. It was only after the third time that I stifled a yawn, that Edward suggested taking me home, the regret clear in his voice.

When we had arrived back at my house, he had gotten out of the car with me and walked me up to the front door. All the lights in the house had been off. He pulled me into one last embrace and I wrapped her arms around his waist, feeling his lips press to the top of my head. Again, we had been silent, not trading any cliché "I-had-a-really-nice-time-tonight" lines. He just took my chin between his fingers and tilted my head up, brushing my lips with his once more before he gently instructed me to get inside. I had, and he had waited until he'd heard the lock engage before going back to his car.

I had then leaned up against the door and squealed, cutting myself off before I could wake my dad. Again, I'd wished I had a best friend to share this with.

But then Edward hadn't called. A best friend would probably be able to help me figure that out too.

It rained for most of Sunday and continued into Saturday, which was unexpected, seeing as to how October was coming to a close. With a start, I realized that I had been in Seattle for nearly two months now. I had been assigned to only one operation. Vaguely, I wondered if they really had needed me here to replace Irina.

Irina. Despite my best efforts, I hadn't been able to find anything indicating what had happened to the girl. I had hacked into the attendance files of all the local high schools, community colleges, and four-year colleges and universities for any new students who fit Christina's basic identifying statistics and had come up with nothing. Alice was convinced that I had been mistaken, and Jasper didn't think it was worth pursuing. So I was on my own with this, it seemed. I knew that Jasper should be right, but I couldn't help but feel that something was off.

And so it was a cocktail of Edward and Irina that kept me awake on Sunday night. The last thing I consciously thought before I drifted off was that the agency had a stake in both of them. At least they would, if I were to do my damn job and tell them about Edward.

**Edward**

I almost ran late to school on Monday, because I miscalculated the amount of time I'd need to go to the corner coffee shop I'd taken Bella to the previous week, get her the exact same order she'd requested that time during the morning rush, and find a parking space in the school lot. I managed it, and still found myself in front of Bella's locker before she got to school. Her whole face lit up with a smile when her sparkling eyes met mine across the crowded hallway, and my dead heart stuttered at the sight. "Hi," she breathed, coming to a stop so close to me, forgetting entirely to open her locker.

"Hello, Bella," I smiled back, handing her the cup and brushing her hair off her shoulder with my other hand. She looked at the beverage in shock. "It's chai. That's what you wanted, right?"

"Yeah… but… Edward, you didn't have to–"

"It's payback. For the cover charge?" I reminded her, grinning when she rolled her eyes at me. "How was your day yesterday?"

Bella shrugged, breaking eye contact as she finally opened her locker. "Um, pretty slow, actually." She placed two books in the locker and removed her English book, but before she could put it in her bag, I took it from her and took her chin in the same way I had last night so that she turned to face me. "Bella," I said slowly, the concern I felt lacing my tone. "What is it?"

She shrugged, but muttered, "You… I was kind of hoping you'd call me yesterday," she mumbled, unable to keep looking into my eyes, and the blood rushed to her face.

I muttered a curse under my breath and dropped my hand from her face. I swallowed the chagrin clouding my throat, I said, "Bella, would you believe me if I told you that I've never actually… done this before? Any of it?"

She looked up at me blankly. "But you're so good at it," she blurted, apparently without thinking.

"Clearly not." I ran a hand through my hair. "I didn't call you because I thought I would come across as a stalker. But I did want to talk to you. I mean, shit, I brought you chai."

"You did." She looked down at the beverage again before looking up at me. "And I'm being sexist, anyway." Off my confused look, she elaborated. " I could have called you, and I didn't."

I laughed once. "I'm sorry I didn't call you."

"And I'm sorry I didn't call you." Bella smiled shyly, looking up at me through her eyelashes.

My hand returned to her cheek, and I brought her face closer to mine and kissed her gently. The same shudder ran through her, from the blush across her face to the thump in her heart to the heat on her skin, and I relished it all. The warning bell rang and I let her go, handing her book back in the process. Tucking it under her arm, she asked, "Will I see you at break?"

"I should hope so." I flashed her one more smile and disappeared into the crowd.

**Bella**

Nearly lightheaded with my happiness, I hustled to class and landed in my seat just in time. My phone buzzed with a text just as I passed up my homework, and I checked it under the desk, half-expecting it to be some sort of reprimand from Jasper, even though he seemed to have changed his tune about my interactions with Edward.

But it wasn't from Jasper.

_TO ALL YOUNG AGENTS:_

_Further to our directive last week regarding the existence of vampires and your expected extermination thereof, we are modifying our biweekly training session at the Young Agents Training Center to focus solely on this new threat. You will all leave your homes after your traditional classes end on Thursday instead of Friday so that you may spend a full two days, plus the auxiliary days of Thursday and Sunday, in training. Your tickets have been modified to reflect this._

_For ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set ye free_.

I sighed and deleted the text, forcing myself to pay attention in class. The fact that an extra twenty-four hours were being devoted to their training seemed to indicate that the agency had learned something more about vampires, I thought with a shiver. I didn't know how to lie to the agency – I wasn't even sure if I _could_. Yes, they taught their agents to be the best liars in the world, but it just didn't make sense that I would be able to beat them with their own tools. I knew that there was no reason for anyone in the administration to ask me directly about Edward, but I hated that it was even a possibility.

Memories of our evening together flickered through my mind: the light in his eyes when he looked at me, the feel of his breath on my neck, the taste of his lips….

I had to keep him safe.

My phone buzzed again in my pocket, and I jumped. I ignored the incoming text just long enough for my classmates who had glanced over at me to look back at the teacher before I slipped the device out and opened the text, which turned out to be from Alice.

_Fuck my life_.

_It happens,_ Bella replied. _Besides, it's not like we go out and party or anything on thurs nights._

_But it's the principle of the thing, bell! btw, should we all meet up after skool? I think I kno something about vamps that could help us._

It was as if my blood froze in my veins. I typed back quickly, _What? What do you know?_

In the few seconds it took for Alice to reply, I fidgeted to the point of drawing my classmates' attention back to me. When the phone buzzed again, I pounced on it. _dude, I'll tell you both later. calm your tits._

_Alice, seriously. What is it?_

I could almost hear Alice's confusion at my tone, but I didn't care. Alice couldn't know. Please, don't let her know.

But when Alice did reply, it did little to alleviate my fears: _I'm just saying there might be a reason that they told us (Seattle) to focus on vamps. But nbd, seriously._

And I had to content myself with that, seeing as to how, at that moment, the teacher called me to the board to solve for a reverse differential.

**Edward**

I was flying. I had kissed Bella again this morning, I had earned her smile, I had won a permanent spot in her life – at least for now. I was barely paying attention in his classes, and I didn't care.

I was _happy_ – for perhaps the first time in my life, I was genuinely happy about something. I had always taken pleasure in the company of my family and in satisfying my thirst for knowledge by various travels and academic pursuits, but now… when I thought of Bella, there was a lightness in my chest that I could not remember ever having felt before but would not trade for anything. This girl made me so happy, and she didn't even know it.

I knew I could not love her – for one thing, love was not real unless it was reciprocated, and I doubted that Bella had enough life experience to appreciate what love really was – but I was growing to understand that I needed her company like I needed… well, blood.

At the thought, my throat tightened, and I took a moment to beat back my baser instincts. I would not remember her floral scent, the way her pulse thrummed beneath my hand when I stroked her neck.

But even as I tried to force that thought back, a new one surfaced. The way when, as I stroked her neck, a blush would rise under her skin, turning it from porcelain to rose. How her breath would catch, how she would smile up at me.

Perhaps… perhaps if I could focus on that, I truly would not be a threat to Bella. The thought pleased me.

Emmett caught up with me between classes, asking if he could borrow the headphones for my iPod since he'd left his at home, and also Rosalie's birthday was coming up and did I have any ideas on what he should get her and also, where had I been last night?

I handed him the speakers, told him to find some books by an author Rosalie had recently become infatuated with, and added, "I went out."

"Yeah, I figured that. Where did you go?"

I shrugged. However much I had told Esme and Carlisle about Bella, I wasn't ready to share it with Rosalie or Em yet. "Just around, Em."

Emmett put a hand on my arm and pulled me out of the flow of traffic in the hallway. "Edward, are you okay? I mean…" Em shrugged and a lock of his brown hair fell into his eyes. "I know I've been teasing you a lot about Bella, and I'm guessing that whatever's bothering you has something to do with her, but… seriously, if there's anything I can help you with–"

I cut him off. "Em, I… I do appreciate that, but I feel like this is just something I have to figure out for myself." It wasn't what I had planned to say, but the relief I felt at not lying to or hiding from my brother nearly floored me.

"So she's… important?" Emmett asked, trying to be delicate. I nodded, looking away. "Good. I like her." Clapping me on the shoulder, Em grinned once more and headed off to his own class, headphones in hand.

I sighed, wishing that just once, life could be as easy as my brother imagined it to be.

As lunch approached, I realized that my stomach was in knots. I wasn't exactly nervous, per se, I just didn't know exactly how this was going to go. And as soon as that thought crossed my mind, I knew he absolutely would not be able to stand sitting with Bella in the cafeteria.

There would be mindless humans watching, staring, whispering, trying to analyze every single movement, every facial expression, try to overhear every word. I wouldn't be able to stand that – I barely knew what Bella was to me, I had no idea what I was to her, and the thought of anyone else trying to invade what we had not yet learned for themselves sickened me.

And so as soon as fourth period ended, I hurried through the crowd of children wending their way toward the cafeteria, hoping to catch Bella before she went too far from her class. I managed to catch her just before she turned into the main hallway. "Edward! I thought we were getting lunch..." she trailed off, flushing and biting on her lower lip. The sight did strange things to the muscles in my chest.

"We are," I grinned at her, suddenly shy. It never failed to fascinate me, this subtle power she had over me. Around her, I could go from secretive to sweet and back in mere seconds – my emotions were not my own anymore.

I couldn't find it in me to regret that.

"I just thought you might want to go somewhere that... wasn't the cafeteria," I continued. "After all, we started some rumors in the hall today. I didn't know if you'd want to..."

"Sure," Bella cut me off, her eyes brightening. "So where did you...?"

I opened my mouth, then closed it, because I hadn't actually thought that far ahead. While I could eat human food in the daytime, I still had a very limited appreciation for it, and furthermore, I had no idea what Bella would like. "We could... there's a Subway around the corner," I offered, thinking that sandwiches would be safe. Everybody liked sandwiches.

Bella nodded, smiling up at me, both of us ignoring that, as long as we stood in the hallway, the more frustration we were causing as people tried to push past us. "One condition. I get to drive."

"Fine," I agreed as we began to head out of the school. "And I'm not complaining, but any particular reason?"

She shrugged. "You always drive."

"Because you don't know the city."

"And how am I going to learn?" she retorted, playfully. "You're going to give me directions, because I'm going to need them, but I get to drive, please and thank you."

I laughed once, nodding. No one else had been able to coax laughter from me so often in a long time. Emmett tried, but I usually found his optimism more wearing than uplifting, and they both often felt guilty about that. Rosalie, too, had a hard time tolerating my perpetual somberness. But it saddened Esme and Carlisle.

How would everyone in my family react to Bella, I wondered for the hundredth time. Esme would instantly love her because she made me happy. Carlisle would be thrilled at the prospect of someone changing my life, and Emmett would enjoy Bella's sarcastic sense of humor, I was sure.

But Rosalie... she wouldn't understand why I felt the need to come back to Bella again and again. I could almost hear her advice now: "Fuck her and have done with it. Let's go back to normal."

I shivered, partly in disgust at the thought of debasing Bella in that way, but part of me shivered in desire as well. What would it be like, I wondered, to loosen her hair from the elastic she'd bunched it up in, to watch it cascade over her neck? To follow the motion of the hair with his fingertips, running them along the skin of her neck until he reached her collarbones, the way the buttons would slip through their holes in her shirt, revealing more of that snowy skin...

A hand waved in front of my face, and I startled. "Hey," Bella laughed. "Where did you go, kid?"

Shaking my head to clear it, and to stop my eyes from wandering down from hers to the very part of her body that I'd been imagining, I glanced around and saw that we'd made it to the parking lot. It wasn't raining, but the dark, thick clouds overhead didn't exactly look friendly. "Sorry, sweetheart. Did you say something?"

It took Bella a moment to respond, and she stared up at me with wide eyes, and after a moment her silence got my attention, and I glanced down at her, then grimaced. "Should I not have said-"

The next thing I knew, Bella's hands were cupped around my neck as she drew my mouth to hers. She kissed me hard, and it only took me seconds to catch up to her, my hands meeting her waist as her lips opened against mine. I took her top lip between mine, allowing my tongue the most gentle of caresses, feeling the warmth of her body seep into my own, even through our two jackets.

The sound of the main school doors opening behind us and chattering students making their way down the steps seemed to remind Bella where she was, and she pulled back from me, though not enough to dislodge my hands from her waist. "Sorry," she muttered, the word coming out breathlessly.

I chuckled, a rough sound, even to my own ears. "God, I'm not, but can I ask what that was about?"

Bella blushed and started walking towards her car again, but my hand simply slid from her waist to her arm so I could wrap her fingers with my own. The level of physical comfort she inspired in me was a little unnerving. "You called me sweetheart," she mumbled, and I barely heard her. Off my confused look, she shrugged. "I can't really explain it. But I... I like... that you called me that."

I grinned, thinking to myself that if I got that reaction every time, I'd certainly be calling her that more often. I got to the car just in time to open the driver's side door for her, ignoring it when she rolled her eyes. Once I was seated and she had started the car, she asked, "Left or right?"

"Right," I instructed, and moved my hand towards her knee, but stopped and pulled it back into my lap before she could notice.

It took us only a few minutes to get there, but in that time, the rain had started. Bella had apparently still not realized that she was in the Pacific Northwest now, and there was no point in her wearing a jacket if the jacket had no hood. I teased her for this after we paid for our food, but I handed her my bag so that I could shrug out of my jacket and offer it to her.

"Edward, we'll be outside for like two seconds," she protested, but still couldn't fight off her wide smile at the gesture as she made me put the jacket back on. Pride swelled in me.

As Bella got the car back on the road, I took a moment to just study her. Sometimes, when she was relaxed, her face at rest, I could see traces of some deep-seated pain in her eyes. The longer I spent with her, the more I was sure that her pain did not stem from one specific incident - she had lived a series of things that no girl as young as she should ever have to, and this stirred an ancient rage deep inside me.

I wanted to find it – I wanted to find the source of her pain and fucking end it for her, destroy it so that it could never come for her again. Because now it wasn't enough for me that Bella be safe. She should always be happy – because someone as beautiful and snaky and brilliant as she deserved nothing less.

**Bella**

Once we were heading back towards the school, he asked me, "You do own a real raincoat, right? With a hood and everything? You do know what a hood looks like, I'm assuming. Although I'm just guessing as to whether or not they make those in Arizona."

I glared at him out of the corner of my eye. "Yes, I own a real raincoat with a hood and everything, smartass. It just wasn't raining when I left the house this morning."

We continued to tease back and forth for the full ride back, and I found that my parking spot was still open. I slid my car into it before shifting my seat back and turning to lean against the door so that I was facing Edward as I pulled my lunch from my bag. Again, it had not escaped my notice that he had asked for easily the blandest sandwich possible – turkey on wheat, no condiments, no vegetables.

I looked up from my own sandwich to see his eyes on me. "You keep spacing out on me, bro," I observed, raising an eyebrow at the vacant look in Edward's golden eyes as I took a pull from the straw of my soda.

Edward laughed at the term of endearment. "Have I been acting like your bro, Miss Swan?" he shot back at me, raising his eyebrows. "I know and I'm sorry, sweetheart."

I snorted. "Don't apologize."

We ate in companionable silence for a few minutes, the radio playing softly and rain tapping the windows and roof of the car, before Edward spoke suddenly. "Can I ask you something?" When I nodded, he went on. "Why did you move to Seattle?"

I shrugged. "It was time to spend a few months with my dad before I disappear to college."

"Really?" Edward asked quietly, and something about the intensity of his voice made my gut twist at the lie. "Bella, do you trust me?"

I sighed, putting my sandwich down in its wrapper and looking out the windshield. "I... would you understand if I told you it's something I really can't go into?" I asked, fully aware of the magnitude of the risk I was taking. "Edward, listen," I cut him off before he could answer. "I really like you. That sounds ridiculously cheesy, but it's the best I can do right now. I don't want to lose this," I gestured at the space between us, "but... I can't... tell you everything."

"Can I ask one question?" I gestured Edward to go on, but my guard was up. "Were you running from something?"

I laughed once. "No, I was not. You're just going to keep playing twenty questions in your head, aren't you?" Off his silent nod, I shrugged. "Well, enjoy. What if it's something you can't handle?"

"Example?" Edward snapped, eyes hardening.

"Well," I drew the word out dramatically, stretching my arms out in front of me before bringing my hands back to my lap, "I could be in the Witness Protection program, and they just placed me with Charlie Swan 'cause he's a police chief."

"They'd do better to place you with someone not in law enforcement," Edward retorted, fighting the smile that was growing against his will.

I rolled my eyes at him. "Charlie wouldn't be a real cop; he'd be a US Marshal undercover. God, Edward, you're so stupid."

Edward snorted, the sound of mirth escaping him against his will, it would seem. "Sorry."

I waved my hand, inwardly applauding myself for turning his questioning into a teasing match. "Next theory."

"Er... You're actually a drug smuggler."

She rolled her eyes. "Now you're just judging the entire state of Arizona. Just 'cause you're a white boy from the suburbs..."

"I'm not from the suburbs, and you're easily as white as I am," he countered, indignant, moreso than the situation warranted, I thought.

I cocked my head. "Yeah? You're not from around here?"

His eyes tightened, but relaxed quickly. "We were all born on the East Coast, but different parts. Esme and I are from Philadelphia, and Carlisle and Rosalie are from Boston. Em was born in upstate New York."

"I'm sorry about your parents," I said after another brief silence, and Edward looked up at me with wide eyes. "I don't know that I've ever said that before. But I am. Sorry."

He shrugged. "It was a long time ago."

I nodded and looked down, playing with my fingertips in my lap. "Would we ever have spoken if not for this Kennedy project, do you think?" We would have been in the same history class, but had the project not been assigned, would he ever have taken the time to notice me?

"I hope so," he murmured, but it was enough, and I felt myself blushing.

In seconds, the atmosphere in the car changed. He unceremoniously tossed what remained of his lunch onto the dashboard and reached for me. "Come here."

My laugh was breathless as his fingers closed around my wrist and I let him pull me into his lap so that my legs were straddling his. I took great care not to let the critical parts of our anatomy come into contact, knowing that we weren't ready for that yet, but I by no means stopped him from plunging his fingers into my hair, thoroughly loosening my ponytail, as his lips sealed over mine; I sensed his suddenly desperate, ravenous mood and caught up quickly. My own hands gripped his shoulders, bringing our chests flush, as my tongue coaxed his out to play.

Edward groaned at my tongue meeting his own soft flesh, and I marveled at the taste of him. His hands left my hair and moved down my neck, only to brace between my shoulder blades as my arms wrapped around his neck and I angled his head to deepen the kiss. Everything in me was urging me to grind down on him, but I couldn't let that happen.

To distract myself, I broke my mouth from his and brushed my lips roughly along his jaw line, eventually making it to his neck. Another beautiful sound escaped Edward when I left an open-mouthed kiss on the skin that joined his neck to his collarbone.

He could not make his hands stay still. They shifted all over my back, under my jacket, and I could feel him trace the outline of my bra through the T-shirt that I wore. His palms skimmed down the cotton to the waist of my jeans, and after a moment of hesitation in which I kissed across his throat to nibble lightly at his ear lobe, he took a deep breath and shifted his hands to my rear. I gasped, my teeth scraping the skin of his throat, and Edward to gripped me gently, causing my hips to move.

He left one hand where it was, the other one lifting back up to my jaw to quickly angle my face back at his so that he could reclaim my mouth. After one fast, bruising kiss, he tilted my chin back so that he could brush his lips along the skin of my throat, and I couldn't think of why that particular part of my body should be a bad idea. I sighed, the rush of Edward's breath on my skin causing me to shiver, to roll my hips again.

And suddenly, I could feel him, the way his body was changing beneath his jeans. A sound almost like a growl escaped him and he lunged for my mouth again, claiming it, fighting me for dominance I willingly gave.

There was a haze in my mind now, and all it let me focus on was the feeling of him - wrapped all around me, his tongue exploring my mouth, the golden eyes, now the color of night, that I kept getting glimpses of in the brief moments I could hold my eyes open. My hands slipped down his chest, caressing, tracing the muscles through his Henley, marveling at what I felt. But when my hands reached his abs, Edward grunted, an arm wrapping tightly around my back to pull me closer. Whether it was his intention or not, our hips were now completely flush, and that, at last, awakened me.

"Edward," I whispered against his lips, and he grunted in acknowledgement while continuing to kiss me. "No, I... Edward, wait."

"Shit," he hissed, pulling his head back so quickly that I briefly feared whiplash. "Bella, are you all right? Did I hurt you?"

I laughed, lifting my fingertips to touch my swollen lips. "Not at all," I reassured him. "We just need to... slow down, yeah?"

Edward grimaced, nodding. "Yeah," he sighed, gently shifting me back towards his knees, but not letting me go. "I'm sorry, sweetheart."

I threw my head back and laughed. "God, I'm not. That was..." I met his eyes again, and he chuckled at my blush, his sheepish eyes darting up beneath his long lashes.

"Yes." He ran a hand through his bronze hair, and the motion drew my attention to his watch.

"Shit. We're late."

A smile flashed across his face. "Should we just skip, then?"

"I wish," I sighed, clambering back to the driver's seat. What I didn't say aloud was that Jasper and Alice would handily kill me for the attention that an unnecessary truancy would attract. "And hey, if you like, we can always continue this in the library."

Edward barked a laugh, and his grin did not leave his face as we grabbed our trash and school things, left the car, and headed back towards the school.

No one noticed us slipping into the library late, and even though we did hide behind a shelf deep in the stacks, we kept our kisses sporadic and chaste as we discussed books. In fact, the closest we got for the rest of the day to anything risqué was when he slipped his tongue between my lips as he kissed me goodbye in the parking lot, causing me to tingle all over again. I forgot entirely that I had anything to be worried about until Alice and Jasper showed up at my house several hours later, as I was trying to concentrate on homework.

"Do you know what she's on about?" Jasper asked me as we all went up to my room. His tone was exasperated, and I hoped with everything in me that he could not see my tension as I shook my head.

"This isn't a joke," Alice snapped, sitting cross-legged on my bed and pulling out her laptop. "In fact, I think we can end this – all of this – if we report it soon enough."

**So I'm sure everyone is aware of the recent spate of deleting that's going on with this site. Just so everyone knows, I don't believe that either this story nor the new one that I'm about to start posting, "Everything's on Fire," fall under the MA category, and so I don't think I'm going to wake up one morning and find them deleted. That said, both stories (and some other pieces that aren't on this site) are indeed posted at under the pen name Lily Cullen. I'd be glad to see you over there, but as of right now, these stories will continue to appear on FFn.**

**Now, as for the other story I mentioned earlier…**

**The title is "Everything's on Fire," and it had two distinct inspirations. The first, and less important, is the song that Taylor Swift wrote for the Hunger Games film, entitled "Safe and Sound." The second is from the absolutely brilliant drotuno story "Angel's Embrace," the sequel to "Broken Angel," an AU story of what would have happened had Edward not returned to Bella in _New Moon_. Fear not – it is a Bella/Edward story. I took one of the stories that the Cullens told about their family in a new high school setting and turned it into a real AH story all on its own. I really recommend that you go read "Broken Angel" – not that you need it to understand "Everything's on Fire;" it's just life-changingly good.**

**Please review! You all have to have some thoughts about Alice's new discovery **


	11. Chapter 11

** Hello again! I know it's been a while, but I've been working on "Everything's On Fire" lately (it's with the beta and pre-reader at the moment, which is exciting). I hope you enjoy this.**

** When last we saw Bella, Alice had just called her and Jasper together, saying that she'd found out something important about the vampires. The CIA wants all the agents to come out to Langley for an extra-long weekend, in which they will be trained further in how to hunt vampires.**

**Bella**

My blood was ice in my veins as I waited, not breathing, for Alice to speak again. I knew Jasper was watching me, so I tried to keep my fingers from clasping together, my body from twitching with nerves.

"Okay so," Alice's voice rang out, and I curled up tighter, as if I could shield myself from her information that way, "all this vampire shenanigans started when a team on a wetwork op came back from the Russia/Mongolia/China border."

"You're sure?" Jasper interrupted. "They never told us exactly why we got this order to begin with."

Alice was already nodding. "Yeah, I'm sure. It was the last op to get a full file close before the rumors started, remember? Actually, I don't care if you don't remember. Because I'm right." She shook out her inky black hair.

Jasper stared at her. "How much adderall have you had today?"

She shrugged, clicking through a series of files on her computer. "I don't know. Enough. A lot. Anyway, so on a hunch I did some research into the region, and guess what?" She actually waited for Jasper to say "What" before going on. "Okay, so there's this teeny tiny primitive tribe that lives like right there, and apparently it's part of their religion or mysticism or whatever that they have this blood-drinking ceremony."

"The fuck?" I asked, but I began to relax by degrees. Alice didn't know. She didn't know. Thank God.

"Yeah, so like–" Alice broke off to run a hand through her hair "–I'm thinking that our people just saw something they didn't understand, and threw it into the report that people were killing people and drinking their blood or some shit, and it just got out of control from there. So we just need to tell all the other young operatives, and it'll be okay."

Jasper held up a hand in warning, saying slowly, "Baby, wait. It seems like the Agency would have to have more proof than that. It's pretty thin to go from 'religious ceremony' to 'vampirism.'"

"You believe in vampirism now?" Alice demanded, rounding on him, her eyes snapping. "I'm sorry, aren't you the one who's been telling us that all this is shit right from the beginning, Jasper? So what the hell?"

Jasper opened his mouth angrily, but I cut him off. "It's the adderall," I murmured to him, and he sat back, but still scowled. "Alice," I turned to her, speaking at full volume now, "I'm sure that's where this started. But all Jasper's saying is that it's thin. Is there anything that any of us can do to figure out what compounded the belief into something so certain that we all had to be put on watch?"

Alice opened her mouth, then closed it again; I could tell that she'd been thinking so fast for so long that it hadn't even occurred to her to come up with more proof for her theory. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly before leaning over to Jasper and cupping his face with her hand. "I'm sorry. I love you."

"Yeah, yeah," he grunted, but his face softened.

I looked over Alice's shoulder to the computer screen, seeing a map that had been pulled up, as well as a local newspaper story about the "tragic, accidental death" that the CIA team in question had orchestrated. Beneath those was a window displaying the wikipedia article about the tribe Alice was talking about. Yes, it apparently was a part of their coming-of-age ceremony that blood had to be drunk, but… "Ah, shit," I sighed, causing the other two to break from the private moment they were having and look up at me. "Now I really want to see the rest of this evidence."

"What's up?"

"It's not human blood," I exhaled, turning the computer back towards Jasper. "It's like the blood of a fatted calf or some shit. And if we can tell that from wikipedia, there's got to be more to the CIA's evidence." I glanced up as Alice took the computer back, frowning down at the screen. "What can I do to help you find the rest of the paper trail?"

Alice shrugged. "Nothing yet. Let's wait to see what they have to say this weekend, and we'll go from there. But… should we tell the rest of the cohort? Or at least some of them?"

"Who do you trust enough?" Jasper countered. "I wouldn't bring in anyone else, because I haven't talked to anyone but you two about all this, and I don't know if others are taking it seriously or not. Your Arizona teammates, Bells – would you bring them in?"

I flopped backwards onto my bed and thought about José and Cassie, the two agents I'd shared Phoenix with. They were good agents, but something in me twisted about the idea of giving even more people the idea that yes, vampires were real. I sighed and said, "You're right. As soon as we get something concrete – like, here, it's documented, we're not making this shit up – then we can bring in more people."

Alice frowned. "But after we've proven it, what do we need to bring in more people for?"

"The point of all this is to catch vampires," Jasper answered her, but his eyes were on me. I kept my jaw tight. I didn't even blink.

But it was closing in on me. Soon, I'd have to tell someone something – and either Jasper and Alice would never trust me again, or Edward would leave me.

All the breath in me nearly rushed out, because the latter terrified me significantly more than the former. Edward couldn't leave me – he was too much, too close. I didn't know if I could handle to see him look at me in disgust, to hear the word _traitor_ roll off his lips, to watch his back as he walked away from me for good. The thought made me swallow hard, and suddenly all I wanted was to _go_ to him – to run into his arms, feel his breath on my cheek again, let him wrap me up tight, see his golden eyes shine as they had right after that kiss.

Jasper and Alice continued to talk around me, referencing things like case logs, IP addresses, and cultural history – all things that I had just as much expertise in as they did, but I couldn't make myself do more than pretend to focus. Soon, I managed to rush the two of them out of the house, threatening the possibility of a blown cover because my dad was coming home soon.

That threat of discovery worked like nothing else could, and they were packing up as soon as the words left my mouth. But as Alice hurried out the front door and dove into Jasper's car, Jasper himself paused with me at the threshold. "Bells… if you were in some kind of trouble, you'd tell us, wouldn't you?" he asked quietly, his eyes intent on my face.

I steeled myself for the lie, and I knew that he saw it. But he allowed me to say that yes, of course I would tell him, but as far as I knew, everything was fine. Jasper sighed.

"Just… don't let me catch you doing anything I'd have to report you for," he warned, and I nodded. "Shit, I already should report you for Cullen…."

"Jasper, please." My hand shot out to grip his sleeve. "Please–"

"Calm down." He took my hand off his jacket but squeezed it quickly, a sad smile crossing his face. "I won't do it, because anyone deaf, blind, and stupid could see that you're happy now in a way that you haven't been. But I want you to be sure that you know what you're doing. Bella, this can't end well."

I shrugged, looking away. Jasper had really no idea.

After their car finally pulled away, I still made myself wait an agonizing half-hour before reaching for my phone. During that time, I sat in my dark house, watching the rain tap against the window in my bedroom, knowing it was soaking the street outside. After the long thirty minutes had finally passed, I dove for the little device on my night table.

The phone only rang once before there was a click. "Bella?"

"Edward," I breathed, the frantic tears I hadn't known I was holding back beginning to fall. "I'm sorry… I hope you're not… busy…"

"Sweetheart, calm down," he said urgently; I heard fabric shifting in the background. "What's wrong? Tell me, please…."

"I just…" My breath caught and I had to start over. "I just needed to… hear you…"

"Do you need me to come to you?" he demanded, and somehow, I knew that he was already on his feet and moving, whatever had been occupying his time discarded.

I curled up on myself, sinking slowly back down onto my bed, nodding quickly. "Please."

Edward

_Please_.

That one word ended me, and I started running through the house, ignoring Esme and Carlisle's questioning glances as I dashed into the garage and unlocked my car. "I'm coming," I promised her. "I'll be right there, all right? Can you give me ten minutes?"

I so badly wanted to ask her what was happening, but it didn't matter just then. I barely heard Bella's tearful acknowledgement that I was coming before I threw the car into gear and sped out of the driveway. As I pulled away from the house, I saw Esme go to the front door, felt her eyes on me as I left. I didn't care. She didn't matter right now.

It took me far less than ten minutes to get to Bella's house, far less time than it should have if I was being a safe driver, but that was the last thing on my mind. There was a buzzing beneath my skin that I could not explain, except to know that it would only fade once I was with Bella, able to reach out and wipe her cheeks free of any tears.

I slammed to a stop at the curb in front of her house, the water in the gutter flying everywhere, and bolted from the car and up the walk. I was only halfway to the door when it slammed open and Bella flew out, diving into my arms. I caught her and held her to my body, thinking that I would crush her, but I couldn't find it in me to loosen my grip. Her little, strong form was shuddering against me, her arms wound around my neck, her face buried into my chest.

"Bella?" I asked frantically, my hands running over her head, her back, her hair, anything I could reach. "Sweetheart, what is it? Are you hurt?"

I got no reply, except perhaps a tightening of her grip as the rain continued to splash down around us, and I had to swallow the rising panic. "Please, Bella… please tell me," I begged, oblivious to the fact that I was getting soaked, she was getting soaked, and that a car drove down the street, slowing as it passed us. All that mattered was that Bella's tears just fucking stop.

I reached up and used my fingers to tilt her head up so that I could see her face, watching the raindrops catch on her eyelashes. "Sweetheart…?"

"I'm okay," she cut me off, grimacing when I raised an eyebrow. The rain in her dark hair weighted it down, the water drawing tiny rivulets on her face. The sight of that water reminded him of where they were, as did Bella's shiver. I released her face, turning her and wrapping my arm around her shoulders as I started for the house.

"Let's get you inside."

We didn't go upstairs, like I was expecting; instead, she drew me into the formal living room, walking over to the fireplace and pressing a button. Flames whooshed up in the hearth.

"You should… sit down," she started awkwardly, avoiding my gaze. "I'm sorry I kept you outside for so–"

"Don't," I cut her off, and her eyes snapped to mine. I took a step towards her, my hand finding her neck and rubbing a thumb across her pulse point. "Don't act like you're fine, Bella. You called me crying. I ran to you. Please tell me why."

Bella sighed and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the fire, drawing her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them, and resting her chin on them. She looked so small and vulnerable as I took my place beside her, my fingers reaching up to brush her hair from her face as I studied her profile. "I don't really know," she said slowly. "I just… suddenly felt like… you wouldn't want to keep me."

My eyebrows rose, and I shifted so that my arm was around her shoulders again, drawing her into my side. "Sweetheart…"

"I can't explain it," she continued, shrugging, but laying her head in the crook of my neck as she watched the dancing gas flames. The weight was comforting, and I leaned in, breathing in her scent, noting with no small degree of satisfaction that the thirst was not leaping up. She snuggled closer to me.

I was still worried, still a little afraid, but there was no denying the sense of calm that Bella had begun to radiate as soon as I'd taken her into my arms. And it made me proud that I had been the one who had caused her face to relax. I still wanted to know what had caused her to break down initially, but couldn't it be enough that she had needed me, called for me, and now was resting peacefully in my arms?

I shifted so that I was leaning back against the couch, Bella still safely bundled in my arms, and followed her gaze into the fire. If my presence was all that she needed to regain her composure, then I was a lucky man indeed, if she trusted me with so much.

Her hand began mindlessly playing with the hem of my sleeve, running the fabric between her fingers. I'd been in such a rush to get to her that I hadn't even put on a coat on my way out of the house, but the fire was taking care of warming our clothing. Her breaths slowed, and I wondered if she was becoming slightly drowsy. For a while, the only sound was the hiss of the fire and the rain tapping on the roof and windows of the house.

"Edward?"

Her murmur of my name was the first word that had passed between us in nearly half an hour. Again, I pressed my lips into her hair, reveling in her level of comfort with me. Her next words were a whisper.

"I'm leaving at the end of the week."

I stiffened, and my arms tightened around her, as if by not letting her go in that moment I could prevent her from disappearing. "Leaving? Are you coming back?" My voice was sharp. I remembered all too well the conversation I had overheard between Bella, Alice, and Jasper as I'd stood on Bella's porch two weeks ago. She had received those mysterious and dangerous orders again, I was sure.

"Oh God, of course I am!" she gasped, sitting up straight and turning to face me, her eyes wide and a touch horrified at my cold tone. "Yeah, Edward, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to imply – of course I'm coming back!"

I exhaled shakily, pulling her back to me and trying not to let the relief overwhelm me. This time, her arms slid around my waist too. Once she'd given me a few moments, she sat back again, meeting my eyes with her sweet brown ones. "Listen, I'm just heading out of town for a few days, but I'll be back late Sunday night. I just wanted to let you know."

I nodded once, my eyes narrowing at her vague word choice. "Where are you going, then?"

She bit her lip and turned away from me. "I can't tell you."

I felt my jaw tighten. "Why not?"

"Because…" I knew she was choosing her words very carefully "…it's just this personal thing and I don't want to talk about it until it's resolved." She glanced up at me, still biting on that lip, and I wanted to groan… for so many different reasons. "Please trust me?"

I barely managed to nod once before reaching up one of my hands and using my thumb to tug her soft lip out from between her teeth. I stroked her cheek and drew her to me, brushing her mouth with mine, once, twice, before she cupped her hands around my neck and pulled herself towards me. She straddled my lap, and I welcomed her, searching her eyes briefly before kissing her again.

I let out a sound that was part moan, part growl – I didn't even recognize it – when her tongue slid along my lips, and I parted them, drinking her in. My hands stayed at her waist, but her head angled, deepening the kiss, and I responded, nipping at her lips before reclaiming her mouth.

My hand began to drift, but just as it was about to wander down towards her rear, the front door opened and Bella's father walked in.

Had I been a normal teenager, perhaps the situation wouldn't have been quite as awkward. As it was… well, I wasn't in the habit of meeting the families of the women I'd had. Bella hardly fit that same category, anyway.

"Bells, baby, I think we should order pizza… oh," Charlie stopped abruptly at the sight that greeted him in his living room. Bella scrambled off my lap, and I quickly pulled myself to my feet. She was blushing furiously, while I was trying to look anywhere but at the man who was staring at me in shock. "Am I… interrupting something, Bella?"

"No, Daddy," Bella rushed. "This is… well, you've met Edward, right?"

"I have," Charlie replied, narrowing his eyes. "But I haven't really had an opportunity to speak with him. Edward, would you like to stay for dinner?"

"Actually, I…" I started, but Bella cut me off.

"He has to get home," she babbled. "For dinner."

I nodded. "Yes. I'm sorry, Charlie, but it was nice to see you again."

He didn't have time to reply as Bella hustled me out the door and down the driveway to my car, but paused with me beside the driver's door, looking up at me through her lashes and blushing as the rain came down around us again. "Sorry about that."

I laughed once. "Don't be. I don't think… Bella, I wanted to be ready when I met your father. I wanted to make the best impression possible. And now…"

Bella's eyes widened. "What? You wanted to meet my dad?"

I opened my mouth and then closed it, surprised to find that I _did_. I nodded once and pulled Bella into my arms – one last embrace. "Yes. But soon. Not like this."

"Thank you for coming," she mumbled into my neck, her own arms squeezing me tightly around the waist.

"Anytime," I promised. "You should get inside, though."

"Kay," she conceded, kissing my lips lightly and giving one last quick smile before turning and darting back into the house. I slid into my car, waiting for her front door to close before I started his engine and left. I wasn't checking my rearview mirror, so I didn't see the car start up at the end of the street behind me, nor how similar it looked to the one that had driven by as Bella and I had embraced in the rain not two hours before.

**Bella**

The following two days were two of the most interesting in the history of my public education. For the first time that I could remember, there was an element to my life that just smacked of normal teenager-ness: I had a boyfriend. I had someone to text while in class about something other than the CIA; he met me at my locker both mornings with a cup of chai and both mornings I told him he didn't have to; I left the school with him both days during the lunch hour to eat (and one other time, engage in a heavy make-out session) in either my or Edward's car; we exchanged glances across the room while other groups presented their Mystery reports in Berlenbach's class – for yes, the week of presentation had finally arrived.

Meanwhile, all my time after school not spent with Edward was being devoted to Alice, who had taken to researching everything she possibly could about the East Asian tribe that seemed to have spawned the CIA's vampire fears. I was put in charge of discovering the elements of the culture and history of the tribe while Alice herself – using methods that neither Jasper nor I really wanted to know about – began a subtle hacking campaign into the agency's databases to see if she could track down the rest of the intel. Jasper had taken it upon himself to research vampire mythology from all over the world, a project that I surreptitiously kept a sharp eye on. I refused to accept that Jasper and Alice would find out the truth – whether it was denial or determination, I wasn't really sure, but I knew that everything that had to be done to keep Edward and his family safe, would be done. I would warn Edward, he could tell his family, and they could run. Even if it meant that I never got to see him again, at least he would be safe.

At least, that was what I tried to tell myself.

"Bella," Edward's voice murmured in my ear as we headed towards Berlenbach's classroom, snapping me out of my bleak reverie, "are you awake, sweetheart?"

I forced a laugh and squeezed his hand, nodding. "Yeah. Sorry. Promise not to let me space like that during the presentation."

Edward raised an eyebrow as he led me to my seat in the center of the classroom, then traced his finger through my hair as he stood beside me. "I could give two shits about that. But is anything wrong?"

I met his fierce golden eyes and sighed, knowing that he still wanted to know what had prompted me to call him in a near-panic on Monday. He had never brought it up again, but every once in a while I caught him studying me, wary, almost like he expected me to shatter in front of him. The idea was both comforting and insulting – Bella Swan did not fucking _shatter_ over anything.

But I had.

"Settle down, people," Berlenbach snapped, and the movement and chatter that was surrounding us slowly died down. Edward ran his hand over my hair one more time before returning to his own seat. I shifted uncomfortably. I didn't like lying to him – no matter what it was about.

The first group of the day that presented was dealing with the fate of the crew of the _Mary Celeste_, a ship that left Boston, Massachusetts, for Genoa on the fifth of November in 1872. The ship was found completely unmanned yet fully stocked and on the correct heading, on December fifth, and no real reason for the disappearance of the crew or passengers had ever been discovered. The presenting partners had done some sort of animated computer graphic film, and I wondered idly at taking that much time for a school project. But they seemed to impress Berlenbach.

The second pairing of the day was dealing with the disappearance of union leader and suspected mob boss Jimmy Hoffa. What had Edward been doing while all that was going on? Had he even been alive at the time?

Finally, Berlenbach called Edward and me to the front of the room, sitting back in his seat and giving the impression of one preparing to be impressed. In the ten weeks since the beginning of the school year, neither of us had given him any work that was below A or B quality, as far as I knew.

We didn't disappoint him. Granted, our presentation was very generic-high-school, with one poster board and a few other cardboard-framed photographs, but we hardly glanced at our note cards and were clear and concise in our presentation. I opened with a summary of the events in Dallas on November 22nd, 1963, at least the ones that the general population knew about, and Edward then gave an account of the life and upbringing of Lee Harvey Oswald. We alternated sharing the results of the Warren Commission, and Edward devoted only a few moments to the conspiracies surrounding the death. As we wrapped up our report, I caught Jasper's eye, and he nodded approvingly.

"Well," drawled Berlenbach, after the obligatory unenthusiastic applause had died down, "it was solid work, guys, but I'm a little confused as to why you didn't spend more time exploring the alternate possibilities to the death. You didn't even mention the House Select Committee on Assassinations. I mean, the assignment dealt with unsolved mysteries, after all."

"The mystery was solved," I replied, keeping my face straight. "We're sorry if you don't like the conclusion, but we couldn't find any credible evidence that pointed to another solution. And we felt that it would be academically dishonest to simply repeat the theories of others."

There was one of those tense classroom moments when a student who is technically right faces off with a teacher who has the power to fail her, and Edward shifted on his feet. I knew he wanted to say something to defend me, just by default, but I was glad that he didn't speak.

Finally, Berlenbach shrugged. "Fine. A. Good work, people. Thank you."

I nodded once, and Edward and I took our seats again. Berlenbach glanced at the clock and frowned. "Only five minutes of class left. Keep it down to a dull roar, people."

I grabbed my bag and slid across the room to Edward's corner desk as chatter started up all around us, taking a seat on his desk top and folding my legs Indian-style. He placed his hands on my knees and watched his thumbs move over the denim. "We did okay, yeah?"

He nodded once, still watching the motions of his hands. When he spoke, it was quiet, and he did not look up at me. "Will you call me before your flight takes off?"

There was a pause, and then my hand reached out so that my fingers could run through his beautiful bronze hair. I sighed at the way I could see some of the tension leave his muscles at the simple gesture. "Yes," I whispered, even knowing full well that I shouldn't be promising him that. "And I'll call you the second I land back home, okay?"

"You're not… accountable to me, sweetheart," Edward said, finally looking up to meet my eyes, and I did not miss the pained note in his voice. "I just want to know you're safe."

I snorted once, without humor, because I was never safe. He took my free hand and kissed my fingertips just as the bell rang, then helped me down from my perch. "Listen," I said quietly as we joined the rush in the hallway, "I'm probably not going to see you again before I leave, so–"

Before I could finish the sentence, he pulled me to the side of the hallway, and be damned who was watching, cupped my face in his hands and kissed me, almost roughly. And in that moment, I could _feel _how he hated it, this idea that I was leaving without telling him where I was going, that there was nothing he could do to stop me from getting hurt while I was gone. My arms wound around his waist as he continued kissing me, trying to convey that I didn't want to leave him either. It wasn't just that I didn't want to go where I was going – I didn't want to leave _him_.

He finally broke the kiss and rested his forehead against mine, his eyes now black as they stared into mine. "You'll be careful?"

I nodded once. "Always."

As if he knew he would have to content himself with that, Edward nodded, kissed the top of my head one last time, and walked down the hall to his own class without turning back. I watched him until he was out of sight.

The flight had been long, the car ride had been long, and now the auditorium was overcrowded. All the young agents had been searched, checked in, and greeted by Director Fontana, all as usual, but then, instead of being split into separate activities by age group, all three hundred of us were herded into the auditorium that didn't really have the space. The room had once been the mansion's ballroom, but now was home to so many rows of staggered chairs, a podium, and a large screen-and-projector setup. Alice fought to conceal a yawn behind her hand, but Jasper still laughed at the way her eyes squinted and watered. On Alice's other side, I picked at my cuticles, unable to stop thinking about the nervous, almost fearful tone of Edward's voice when I had called him to say goodbye right before my plane had taken off that afternoon. He was desperately worried for me, I knew that – and I also knew that I'd have to give him something soon.

Finally, the lights dimmed in the auditorium, and all fidgeting stopped. Seconds later, a door behind the podium opened and Fontana and another man that I didn't recognize walked in, followed by the Director of the CIA.

Immediately, all the agents in the room stood. Director Sanchez strolled to the edge of the stage, surveying us all, before he nodded once to Fontana, who motioned us to resume our seats. We did so, and Fontana stepped to the podium and began to speak, his voice echoing from the speakers around the room.

"Welcome, agents. As you know, this weekend is devoted to teaching you everything that we know so far about this vampire threat. We are aware of the skepticism with which you greeted this information, and we applaud you for it. After all, skepticism is the first step towards wisdom. And so we feel that we owe it to you to let you know exactly where this information is coming from." He gestured at the unknown man behind him, who stepped forward. "This is Dr. Aasif Ghorbani, our in-house researcher who has been assigned to the vampire issue."

Cursory applause filled the auditorium as I studied the man. He was small, probably not standing over five-five, and definitely looked to be of Indian descent. But even from my seat halfway up the auditorium, I could see that behind his glasses, his eyes were so sharp it was scary. This was a man who saw everything.

"Thank you, Duke," Ghorbani said, his clipped voice revealing only the trace of an accent. "The vampire, as you may or may not know, has always been believed to be a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the life essence of other sentient beings. As far back as we can tell, awareness of the creature began in Eastern Europe, although we find references to vampire-like creatures as far back as Mesopotamia. However, there seems to have been some sort of Darwinian experience, because the types of vampires referenced in works from Mesopotamia, the Holy Land, Rome, and Greece all seem to die out in favor of those from Eastern Europe.

"We have deduced the following," he continued, pushing his glasses higher up on his nose as he pressed a button, and an image of Fuseli's oil-on-canvas work _The Nightmare_ filled the screen, "most vampires will travel in small groups; they mate for life; they are immortal; and while they do need rest, they do not sleep in coffins. They are not warded off by religious idolatry, garlic, or hawthorn. Their strength, speed, vision, and hearing are all superhuman. Any questions?" He paused, surveying us, but no one moved. "Good.

"Now, we have only been able to verify the existence of two weaknesses, and these are what you must exploit. The first is a total vulnerability to fire. When any open flame, any burning element, comes into direct contact with their skin, their whole body will ignite in seconds. The result is ashes – death. The second vulnerability is wild rosewood, and it was this wood that is most commonly used in staking."

I glanced around at the others, my heart rate picking up at the sight of my colleagues leaning forward, drinking in Ghorbani's words as a photograph of a wild rosebush filled the wall behind him. These people who surrounded me were out to kill Edward and those like him. And I knew that it was important that I absorb everything I could, so that if it became necessary, I would know how to defend him.

A shiver ran through me as I wondered if this was what it felt like to be a double agent.

"Vampire sightings have been on the rise in recent years, but we do our best not to let the public know about that," Ghorbani continued. "You might all remember reading about the mob mentality that took over Malawi a few years ago – the citizens stoning an individual to death and attacking four others because they believed the government was colluding with vampires. In 2005–" a satellite shot of the British West Midlands appeared "–several people in Birmingham reported being violently bitten by a stranger, and of course the magnitude of the attacks and severity of the injuries was hushed up. Reports of a vampire in a small Romanian village in 2004 were treated much the same way."

"So this isn't the first that the CIA has become aware of vampires," Alice breathed to me, and I nodded slowly.

Ghorbani's report went on. "We have known that vampires exist for decades, ladies and gentlemen, but they have never posed a threat to our nation's security until now. An op that was closed some three months ago – an op on which, I understand, you lost a sister – brought back intelligence that informed us that vampires have taken to targeting military bases in war zones, specifically the infirmaries. While there is no evidence to suggest that they are targeting the United States Military specifically, we believe that there is enough of a threat to warrant the all-points-bulletin that you received."

"Jasper," I hissed across Alice's lap. "Jasper, that's the op that Irina supposedly died on."

His head jerked around to face me, and Alice gasped between us. "Let's assume that she's alive," I whispered, my brain working so fast that I felt a headache coming. "Why come back to Seattle? When her op broke one of the greatest threats to national security in a long time? Why not claim that honor?"

Jasper didn't have an answer, and Ghorbani had once again called for questions from the young agents. A Class Two sitting towards the left stood up, and Ghorbani nodded at her.

"How do we know that the stuff you mentioned – the rosewood and fire – actually works?" Her voice was faint from where I was sitting, but I heard every word, and turned back to Ghorbani, rather wanting that answer myself.

Ghorbani glanced over his shoulder at where Fontana and Sanchez were sitting, and the latter nodded. Ghorbani seemed to steel himself, then pressed a button, changing the image on the screen.

Two people, a man and a woman, both apparently Middle Eastern, filled the screen. Their physical ages couldn't have been more than twenty, and there was something hungry about their eyes. "These subjects," said Ghorbani, his voice now sounding much more apathetic than before, "were grabbed by a team of all-adult agents shortly after the young-agent team first reported on vampires. They were bound and heavily guarded on the flight back to Langley – we used their respective safety against each other. The fact that they were quiet supports the theory that vampires mate for life." The image changed to an overhead shot of a surgery theater, and the female was strapped down to a table while several doctors hovered over her. Her teeth were bared, and she seemed to be snapping at her captors.

"They were subjected to all the commonly reported vampire repellents," Ghorbani went on. "They were cut with silver, exposed to crucifixes, rosaries, Bibles, copies of the Qua'ran, the Torah – nothing damaged them at all. We cut them with sharpened edges of every type of wood we could think of, and the cuts all healed over, until we got to the rose wood."

Alice's fingers curled into fists in her lap, and my breath caught. I knew that I wasn't going to like whatever came next.

"The rosewood yielded this effect," Ghorbani sighed, pressing another button. Now it was the male vampire strapped to the table, his body covered in several small cuts that seemed to be bleeding much more than they should. His face was the picture of agony, and I had to close my eyes as, in my mind, the boy's skin paled, his eyes faded to gold, his hair gleamed copper….

"However, the wood, even when driven into his heart, only paralyzed him. Granted, the paralysis from the cardiac sharp-force trauma incapacitated him for a good two hours, but the only way to kill the two of them was to burn them."

The next image was _grisly_ – I had never seen anything like it. It was a photo of the male's body on fire, but the flames leapt up higher than they should, were more blue at their heart. And through all that fire, I could still see the boy's face – the mouth stretched in a silent scream, the eyes wild, the skin beginning to split–

"_Bells!_"

I startled when Alice's voice hissed in my ear. No one but she had noticed my little episode, and she was good enough to let it go, at least for the time being. And I was grateful, for I needed a moment to collect myself.

All I had been able to see was Edward – it was _his_ face that contorted, _his _skin that was charring, _his _wild eyes that found me, begged me to end it, to save him…

Oh, God, this was what they wanted me to do to him. I couldn't. I _couldn't…_

Alice's hand clenched around my wrist, and I managed to pull it together enough to hiss that I was okay. But Alice knew me better now. However, I paid her no attention as I closed my eyes, trying to fight off the image of Edward lying on a table, burning to death, at the hands of an agency I had vowed to serve.

**Oh, goodness… how awful for Bella. She's going to have to make a decision soon, isn't she? Let's all hope that she's not too late. **

**Alice's research isn't what you were probably expecting, but don't get complacent. She's not a stupid girl, and she's going to keep looking until she finds something that makes sense.**

**Until next time…**


	12. Chapter 12

**Hello, All! I'm excited by the response that this story's been getting, and I know that some of you are starting to lose patience with Bella's secrets. She's doing the best she can with what she knows, though.**

**This chapter is a little longer than usual, so before I let you get to it, a little recap of the end of the last one: the young operatives at the CIA were treated to a little lesson on how to kill vampires. Just a reminder: I changed the vampire canon form SMeyer's. During the day, vampires are essentially human, and it is only at night – when they're no longer being weakened by the UV rays of the sun – that they "vamp out," so to speak. But during the day, they can be killed with fire and paralyzed with rosewood.**

**Edward**

On Sunday afternoon, I was supposed to be playing some video game with Emmett and Rosalie, but I couldn't make myself focus. It was sunny outside – a rarity for Seattle in any case, but even more of one in mid-December. For the hundredth time, I wondered where Bella was, what she was doing, if she was thinking of me. I got the reason that she wouldn't be back until late Sunday night, so I wasn't checking my phone for a missed call from her _yet_.

But it was little things all weekend that reminded me of her absence. I heard a song on the radio and wanted to text her to tell her to listen to it. I'd been online and had seen an ad at the side of the screen for Georgetown, and remembered her T-shirt. Even Rosalie's sudden desire for cereal at five on Saturday afternoon made me laugh at the memory of Bella telling me that if the sight of her food bothered me so much, I didn't have to eat it.

The jacket I had worn to school on Wednesday was still lying on the back of my desk chair. It wasn't as if I was picking it up to sniff it, because her scent still clung to the fabric, but I couldn't stand the thought of it becoming buried in my hamper, or my closet. Hiding it away would almost be like trying to disguise the fact that she had, at least, kissed me goodbye.

A thump sounded off to my left, and I turned to see Rosalie glaring at me, having thrown her game controller to the floor. "Get up, Edward."

I raised an eyebrow, but it was Em who spoke. "Rosalie? What's wrong?"

"That," Rosalie hissed, pushing herself to her feet while still fixing her angry eyes on me. "You. Get up. We're going hunting."

I sat back in my seat and rested my hands on the arms, trying not to let my nerves show as the confrontation I'd been dreading for weeks seemed to begin. "I'd really rather not."

"Oh, and why is that?" Rosalie demanded. "Is it that you're too busy playing video games with us? Because your controller is on the floor, Edward. Get up. You and I are going hunting."

I sighed and got to my feet, Emmett following suit. But as the three of us headed for the back door, Rosalie rounded on Emmett, her dark eyes snapping. "I wasn't talking to you. Did I look like I was talking to you?"

"No, but I'm coming anyway," Emmett responded quietly.

"You don't have to –" I started, but Emmett cut me off.

"I do, though. And in fact, I don't see why we need to go hunting. Edward and I went yesterday, Rosalie. But if you need it, we'll be here when you get back." He gestured around the room. "You know Esme and Carlisle went out – that's probably why you waited until now to bring this up. And whatever you want to say to Edward you can say in front of me." He folded his arms across his chest, and there was no trace of his usual laughter in his golden eyes.

Rosalie scowled at Emmett, who stared calmly back. I felt that there was something wrong about that, and I could no longer stay silent. "Em," I said quietly, "this isn't your issue."

"It is, though," Emmett countered without looking at me.

Rosalie seemed to realize that Emmett wasn't backing down, and she sighed, moving back into the room and resuming her seat, gesturing for the other two to do the same. I lowered myself back into my armchair, but Emmett did not follow suit. Instead, he remained standing behind my chair. I privately thought this was a bit much, but didn't say anything, as I was grateful for my brother's support.

"Well?" demanded Rosalie, waving her hand at me, and I did not flinch.

"Well what?"

"What the hell are you doing with that human girl, Edward? Have you even stopped to consider the consequences of your actions? At all? What happens when she finds out what you are? What we all are?"

"She might not," Emmett pointed out from behind me, but Rosalie shook her head violently.

"She will! Either she'll guess because he'll let her too close, or he'll be enough of a romantic _fool_ to tell her!" Rosalie snapped back, picking up the nearest small item – which happened to be an abstract ceramic figurine resting on an end table – and slamming it into the ground. I flinched.

Again, Emmett felt it necessary to throw in his two cents. "How would that necessarily be a bad thing, though? I mean, Edward's been alone for a really long time. Maybe if this girl loves him–"

"No!" Rosalie and I snarled at the same time. I had barely dared voice that idea to _myself_, and here was Emmett, spouting it out for the world to hear.

"Is that your intention?" Rosalie hissed at me, rising from her seat and taking one step towards us. "You want to turn her? Without consulting with the rest of us? Do you really expect our family to be able to survive in the human world with such an _unorthodox_ family situation and not arouse suspicion? Damn it to hell, Edward! What are you thinking!"

"I don't know!" I yelled in response, also standing. I felt as if I were shaking apart, as if something were bearing down on me.

"Then I suggest you _figure it the fuck out_, Edward, and then get your priorities in order." Rosalie stalked up to me and jabbed a finger into my chest. "Did you forget about that blonde girl? The one who could well be following us?"

Emmett, who had moved towards us both the instant that Rosalie had touched me, intervened again. "Rosalie, no one has seen her since that one time," he protested. "It's probably nothing. And even if it was, I don't see what the fuck it has to do with anything."

"Because you don't pay attention," Rosalie snorted. "Did it ever occur to you, Edward – or you, Emmett, since you seem to be a part of this girl's goddamned fan club–"

"Damn it, Rosalie, she has a name!" I shouted.

"Don't give a fuck," Rosalie retorted. "What I was about to say was that she might be working with the girl who was following Esme. Did you ever think of that? That she could be using you to get to us? Did it ever cross your brilliant mind that she could well be playing you and that she wants to expose us?"

"Shut up," I snapped back. "You watch too many spy movies; they've made you paranoid. Of course it never occurred to me, Rosalie, because it's ridiculous." I wasn't about to tell Rosalie about Bella's reaction to the girl who could have been Irina Ivanova outside the craft store, but that incident alone cemented my certainty that Bella Swan was not in any way working with Irina.

But as I stepped back from Rosalie, I realized that, even if I had not seen Bella's reaction to the possibility of Irina, I still would not believe that she intended to harm me or my family. And I had no better reason than that I trusted her.

"Rosalie, I'm done with this conversation." My voice was quiet, and I met my sister's angry gaze without flinching. "You can either accept that Bella is not out to hurt us and let me alone, or you can ask me to leave the family. Either way, I will not stop seeing her."

That stunned Rosalie, and she stared at me with wide eyes as the color left her face. "You're choosing her over us?" she breathed.

I set my jaw before answering. "I'd rather not have to make that choice at all, Rosalie."

Emmett spoke up, looking thoughtfully at me. "We don't have to tell you that this can't end well, do we?"

"No." I shook my head. "I'm aware."

"Then why do you insist–" Rosalie began, but she was cut off by my phone buzzing in my pocket. I snatched the device and turned away from them both.

I checked the caller ID and sighed in relief. "Bella?"

It sounded like she was speaking on a yawn when she replied. "Hey. I just got back on the Light Rail train thingy from the airport. Can you pick me up downtown?"

"Of course." Without looking back at my siblings, I ran upstairs to get my keys and wallet before leaving the house for the garage. "But don't you want to call your parents?"

"I…" Bella trailed off. "I called them when I landed. I just really wanted to… see you. I'm sorry."

I laughed once as I started my car. "Sweetheart, you never have to apologize for that. You sound so tired. When did you eat last?"

I could almost hear Bella shrugging. "Don't know," she murmured, and in the background, I could hear the engine of the train starting up. "But please don't take that as an obligation to feed me."

"Not an obligation," I retorted as I got on the freeway into the city. "A privilege."

Bella huffed a laugh. "Listen, you know this thing eventually goes underground, so…"

"Right," I said. "So you'll get off at the Westlake station, then?"

"Yeah," Bella sighed.

"Then I'll see you there," I promised before hanging up and tossing the phone onto the passenger's side seat of my car. My hands were tingling as they gripped the steering wheel. Bella was home. She had called for me to come get her. Instantly, I began evaluating eating establishments downtown that would suit our purposes, finally deciding that I would simply let her pick.

It seemed that it had never taken me so long to drive into downtown Seattle; I began to worry that I might not beat the Light Rail to the station. When I finally reached Westlake Center, I checked my phone and saw that she had not texted me news of her arrival; taking that knowledge, I drove a few streets over to where parallel parking curbside was legal, and put my car into park. I hurried back over to the entrance of the Westlake station, which was actually underground, beneath the Nordstrom's department store. I descended the two flights of escalators and took a seat on one of the benches at the back edge of the platform, tapping my foot impatiently. I'd been brusque with her when she had left school on Wednesday, and she had been subdued when she'd called before her flight left. Now, though, an anticipation so strong it nearly hurt sang in me as I willed the train to come faster.

It wasn't even a full fifteen minutes before the large white train snaked its way into the station, and I stood up, unable to be still for another moment. The doors slid open and the platform flooded with people. I cursed under my breath, stretching my neck this way and that, knowing that with her dark hair and likely nondescript clothes, Bella would easily blend into the crowd. I almost forgot that I was underground and pulled my phone out to call her.

People passed me, some looking twice at me, but I didn't really notice. Just as I began to worry that I had somehow missed her, I heard a lovely, tired voice call "Edward!"

**Bella**

I felt the relief wash through me when I spotted Edward's messy bronze hair above the heads of the people surrounding me. It was irrational, I knew, to worry that something had happened to him during the three days I had been away, but given that I couldn't close my eyes without seeing horrific visions of fire and rosewood, perhaps that was understandable. I pushed my way past the last few people separating us, barley having time to register how Edward's smile widened and his eyes brightened as I approached, and then dropped my bag and threw myself into his embrace.

He huffed in surprise, but caught me easily as I wound my arms so tightly around his neck and shoulders, burying my face into his neck, feeling him solid and safe and alive. My nightmares had been haunted by the image of Edward strapped to a table of torture, and I shut my eyes against his skin, willing the thought away. I was so scared for him, scared of what would happen next, of the idea of anyone harming him. I was scared because, God help me, I loved him, and that realization alone made me want to climb inside his chest and never leave.

Edward's warm chuckle slid into my ear, and finally I looked up, blushing slightly at the way his eyes softened when they met mine. "Bella, you smell good too, but could you at least say hi to me?"

I giggled, honestly giggled, for what felt like the first time in ages, and nodded. "Yeah. Hi, Edward."

"That's better." He leaned down to kiss me, his tongue swiping across my top lip, just for a moment, just for a taste. "Hi. You look dead on your feet, sweetheart."

I shrugged. "I've looked worse."

Edward frowned at that, but unwound one arm from my waist so that he could scoop up the strap of my bag and sling it over his shoulder before he began guiding me back up to the street. "Where do you want to go eat?"

"Um… honestly?" I asked, hesitant. Edward just looked down at me with a raised eyebrow. "Could we go to our coffee shop?"

"The one by school?" When I nodded, Edward continued, "Sure, yeah. I think they'll still be open."

I was grateful that he didn't ask me any questions, although he must have been dying of curiosity, given the sideways glances he kept shooting me. But he kept his arm tight around my shoulders, allowed me to wrap mine around his waist, and silently escorted me back up to the street level. "This way," he murmured, directing me down the street to his car, eventually opening the passenger's side door for me and then slinging my bag into the back seat. Once he was in the driver's seat, he started the car and pulled into the street, then rested his hand on my thigh. I covered it with my own and felt the way that the simple contact with his smooth skin calmed me.

My realization of the depth of my feelings for Edward didn't come as a shock, although I did have a private laugh at the idea that Jasper and Alice had figured me out better than I had myself. Oh well. I sighed and rested my head on Edward's shoulder, feeling him tighten his hold on my thigh.

The little coffee shop was about half-full when we walked into the door, and Edward directed me towards a dark faux-leather couch in the corner while he went to go place our orders. I dropped into the cushions, groaning softly as I really began to feel the soreness from the new fighting techniques I'd been taught. We had been conditioned to move faster in hand-to-hand combat, and the instructors had been armed with reinforced gloves that made a punch approximately three times harder. I knew that I'd have an extremely large bruise on my left hip by morning, and I was sure that there would be several others joining it.

This wasn't worth it, I realized, resting my head back on the couch back and watching Edward as he leaned against the wall beside the coffee bar, waiting for our order to be filled. My grades suffered, my body was constantly in pain, I had to lie to the people I loved, I had no friends… and for what? The money? I had enough saved to pay for college already. National security? Well… I was living proof that children were being turned into killers to go out into the world and kill people who would kill American children. Maybe I was just too tired, but I couldn't see the logic in that just now.

There was an option to leave the program in my contract, but to the best of my knowledge, only a few young agents had ever used it. One girl had left shortly after her father had died of cancer; a boy barely two weeks away from completing the program had quit so that he could pursue a PhD instead. I had no such valid reason.

Or maybe I did, I mused as I watched Edward make his way back across the shop to me, a mug of steaming liquid in each hand. He smiled widely as he met my eyes, and I sat up a little straighter in anticipation of his nearness.

"There's a panini coming for you," Edward told me as he took his place next to me, handing me a cup of chai in the process. His golden eyes were still concerned, but so very warm as they searched my face again for any sign of distress. I took a sip of my drink before shifting so that I was curled up in Edward's side, and he automatically slid his free arm around my body, holding me close. He pressed a kiss into my hair as I wrapped my hands around my mug.

I murmured my thanks for the sandwich, staring out a window across the shop at the misty rain outside. "I have a question," I said suddenly, looking up at Edward. He just raised an eyebrow and waited for me to go on. "Why me?"

Edward frowned. "I don't follow."

I shifted and felt Edward's arm instinctively tighten around me, as if he were afraid I would move away. I didn't really know where I was going with this question, but the words kept coming regardless. "Why am I the one you're letting in? I'm not being fair to you at all, Edward – I don't tell you shit that you deserve to know, I disappear on you, I don't…" I caught my breath, realizing I was babbling, but unable to look anywhere but at my own tightly interlocked fingers. "I'm not the best person in the world to try and have a relationship with."

Edward was silent for a moment, and I feared that I'd said too much, and he'd listened to me. But when he spoke, his voice held nothing but surprise. "I didn't know you were thinking anything like that," he started slowly. "Look at me, sweetheart," he coaxed, his fingers finding that spot beneath my chin and tilting my face up. I felt herself blush at what I saw in his eyes. "I can't really give you a concrete answer, Bella. All I know is that I'm letting you in because it feels right. Do I wish you'd tell me whatever it is that you're not? Absolutely. But does the fact that you're not make me resent you? Never, sweetheart," he whispered, leaning down so his forehead touched mine. "I know something about needing to keep a secret, and we haven't really known each other for very long. I'm letting you in because you're more important to me than anyone has ever been, and I can't explain it, but I'm not going to let anything you say or do make me drive you away. Okay?" he asked, kissing my nose lightly.

I tried to swallow hard around the lump that had formed in my throat, but a small laugh bubbled to the surface anyway. "You… are amazing."

Edward chuckled. "Thanks. And while I would really like an explanation for what prompted that question, I'm going to assume that it's not something you're comfortable discussing now."

"Thank you," I murmured, and it was for more than his handing me a pass on difficult conversations. Edward smiled again and leaned in. He would have kissed me, I was sure, had a waitress not chosen that moment to arrive with my sandwich. Edward nodded at the girl, who smiled back and then paused, doing a double take. I had taken off my jacket, and my shirt had ridden up, exposing a sliver of skin that was quickly darkening to purple.

The waitress's eyebrows knit together as her glance darted back to Edward. "Sweetie, can I get you some ice for that?" she asked me, making sure that Edward heard her.

But Edward started, leaning over to get a look at the bruise the waitress had noticed. "Oh, Bella," he sighed, and my heart jumped at the sadness in his eyes when he saw that I was hurt. "How bad?" As he asked, his fingertips reached out to ghost along the exposed skin.

"It's nothing," I tried to reassure him, tugging my shirt down at the same time. "No, but thank you," I added quickly to the waitress, who nodded, her eyes flickering between us one more time before she left.

As I ate, Edward's hand did not stop touching me – from running his fingers through my hair to laying his palm on my shoulder, to moving it down again to trace where he now knew I was bruised. "I've had worse, Edward," I murmured. "It's not the end of the world."

He snorted, kissing my forehead again. I knew he was thinking of the old bruises on my neck he had spotted so long ago. "I still feel like I should be punishing someone for them, though."

"And I appreciate that," I told him, shifting so that I was kneeling on the couch cushions, facing him. His eyes narrowed as he saw me wince. "But I can take care of myself, Edward. Trust me on that, okay?"

"I'll try," he conceded. "But if it gets any worse…"

"If it gets any worse, I promise to tell you," I agreed, the lie rolling off my tongue so easily that I was disgusted with myself.

Edward nodded once. "Good. Are you done?" When I balled up my napkin and dropped it onto the plate, Edward stood and reached for me hand. "Then let's get you home, okay?"

"Can you stay for a while?" I asked as he opened the shop door for me and we stepped outside.

"If you want me to." He grinned at me, and I saw the way that the mist caught in his hair, the way that the light from the streetlamp gilded it softly.

I smiled back and let him help me into the car, taking his hand once he'd taken the driver's seat beside me. "I want you to. But you should know that my dad will be home."

Edward mock-groaned at that, and I giggled. "Will he interrogate me?"

"Doubt it," I shrugged. "He probably won't know how to handle his daughter having a boyfriend."

"What, you've never had a boyfriend before?"

"Not one that my dad knew anything about," I replied, smirking slightly. Edward looked like he didn't quite know what to make of that, and the rest of the drive to my house was silent. I hoped I hadn't made him nervous. In fact, as we pulled up in front of my house, the silence finally compelled me to explain.

"I go to this… camp over the summer," I began, and Edward glanced over at me with an unreadable expression. "There was a guy… his name was Ryan. We sort of had a thing, but it didn't extend beyond camp. When the summer ended, we both decided to break it off."

That all was actually true – I had had a brief infatuation with a male agent about two classes older than I was. His specialization was field medicine. Our brief relationship had been based more on a mutual interest in conspiracy theory and the fact that Ryan found me hot and I was flattered that a boy so much older would pay any attention to me. When the summer training camp ended neither of us wanted to deal with the fact that I lived in Arizona and he lived in Pittsburgh. Also, though neither of us said it aloud, the chances of one of us dying were too great to be dealt with. "Anyway, my dad didn't even know he existed," I finished.

"Can I ask…" Edward started, then cut he off, looking away from me. I thought I saw him blush.

Thinking I could guess where he'd been going with it, I told him quietly, "Second base, Edward. That's it. And hardly even that, because he got under my shirt but not under my bra."

Edward turned to face me, and his eyes were darker than they had been moments ago. "Did you want him to?"

"I did at the time," I shrugged, thinking that it was probably a good thing that Edward didn't know what I'd had to do with my body for the CIA. "Now, though…" I picked up Edward's hand and kissed his palm. "If I saw him again, Edward, it wouldn't mean anything. He wouldn't mean anything."

Edward smiled humorlessly. "Bella, I haven't touched you. And you're beautiful – I can't reasonably expect to have been the only guy who's ever noticed it."

I blushed wildly at the compliment, but did not release Edward's hand. "You haven't touched me _yet_. And if it makes you feel better," I added when his head snapped around to face me, "he was so bad at feeling me up that I swore I'd never want anyone else to touch me. But with you… shit. I'm asking you to feel me up. This is awkward."

Abruptly, Edward reached forward and drove his hands into my hair, pulling me head towards him and kissing me with almost a bruising roughness. "Thank God," he breathed against my lips, and I couldn't help but laugh, albeit breathlessly. "We should go inside, before I…"

"Yeah. Probably a good idea." I leaned back, took a deep breath, and released my seat belt, stepping out of the car without looking back at Edward. I knew that if I met his eyes then, if I saw the fire that was probably there, I would be lost. Edward's door slammed behind me and I glanced back just in time to see him reaching into the back seat of the car to retrieve my bag. As we started up the walk, he took my hand. The porch light was lit, and through the windows, we could see that the living room lights were on.

I unlocked the front door and guided Edward inside, calling out, "Dad?"

Charlie hurried into the hallway from the living room and wordlessly pulled me into a hug before grasping my shoulders and inspecting my face. "I'm not hurt," I reassured her, and Edward frowned.

Charlie, though, seemed to take my word for it and turned to Edward. "Thank you for picking her up," he said quietly. "Has she eaten?"

"I got her something," he nodded.

I held her breath, watching my father size Edward up. Edward had a good two or three inches on Charlie Swan, but he still managed to look intimidated as my dad looked him up and down with narrowed eyes. "Daddy," I started hesitantly, "this is Edward Cullen."

"Your partner for that project?" Charlie asked without taking his eyes off Edward.

I nodded once. "Among other things. Edward, this is my dad, Charlie."

Edward held out his hand. "It's very nice to meet you, sir."

"Mmhmm. And you, I'm sure." Charlie shook Edward's hand, but to me, it looked a little harder than was strictly necessary. "You treating my daughter right?"

I groaned, but Edward seemed to take the question seriously. "I believe I do, sir."

Charlie grunted. "Keep it that way." He turned back to Bella. "I want your bedroom door cracked, honey. You hear?"

Rolling my eyes, I huffed, "Yes, Daddy."

Edward actually laughed at that before turning back to Charlie and saying solemnly, "I can promise you, sir, that I have only the best of intentions towards your daughter."

Charlie huffed again, but apparently Edward's declaration was enough for him, because he waved us off without another word. Edward grinned at me before hitching my bag higher on his shoulder and following me up the stairs to my room – the door of which we did indeed leave cracked.

**Edward**

Bella managed to wait until she had flopped onto her back on the bed before she burst out laughing. "You totally practiced that speech, didn't you?"

I shrugged, grinning, taking a seat on the mattress beside her. "I told you I wanted to make a good impression on him," I teased. "But I guess that means," I continued, turning so that I was leaning over Bella's supine form, my forearms braced on either side of her head as she lay beneath me, her eyes still sparkling with her laughter, "that we won't be making it up to second base any time tonight."

"Well, shit," Bella groaned. "Actually, that's okay, because my bra is boring today."

I growled low, diving in and placed a series of open-mouthed, wet kisses along Bella's throat, holding my breath as I did so. "I doubt that," was all I said before I made myself roll off her, resuming a G-rated position at her side. "Bella, can we please talk about something else?"

She laughed again, but it soon turned into a yawn. I reached over and brushed a strand of her hair out of her face, smiling as her soft brown eyes shone up at me. "Should we just watch a movie or something?"

"Mmm, that sounds safe," I agreed, and Bella rolled off the bed and headed to her bookcase. It was a large piece of furniture, and all but one of the five shelves were full of books, mostly hardback, all looking remarkably well-loved. I itched to go explore what titles she had, but I was even more content to simply lie there and watch her profile as she ran a finger along a row of DVD cases, finally settling on _Finding Nemo_.

She popped the disc into the DVD player that was situated on a tiny table that also housed her small TV, which was dusty from lack of use. After shrugging off her jacket and removing her shoes, she curled back up into my side, saying, "Shoes off if you want your feet up here, please and thank you."

I quickly complied, returning to her arms. I had never been a huge fan of cinema, despite the fact that I'd witnessed the invention of the art. I preferred books. That said, I definitely was not complaining about resting on Bella's bed in the semidarkness with her cradled against my chest, her scent surrounding me, her hair caressing my skin. Slowly, I felt her muscles begin to relax as whatever tension had pervaded her over the weekend slowly began to disperse. Her breathing evened out, and she was asleep before even the first escape from the dentist's fish tank had been attempted. But her hand fisted in the material of my shirt as if, even in her sleep, she never wanted to let me go.

There was a light tap on the door, and Edward looked up to see Charlie poking his head into the room. "Did you kids want anything – oh," he stammered, when he caught sight of his daughter wrapped up in my arms, fast asleep. For my part, I smiled sheepishly.

"I think we're okay," I reassured Charlie in a whisper, silently begging him not to ask me to leave. He nodded slowly, trying to fight off his smile, and slowly backed out… leaving the door cracked, of course.

Over an hour later, when the movie finally ended, I simply let the screen fade to black and stared down at the beautiful girl resting her head on my chest, running my fingers through her hair and watching the gentle rise and fall of her body with her breaths.

I would gladly have stayed all night, but I knew I couldn't. I gently eased myself out from under Bella, smiling when she frowned in her sleep and reached for me, instead grabbing onto a pillow and tucking it into herself. I took the afghan that was thrown across the end of her bed and pulled it up over her, kissed her forehead, and somehow made myself leave the room.

Once I'd gone downstairs and said a quick good night to Charlie, I left the house, got back in my car, and sat for a moment, simply feeling the effects of a happiness greater than anything he'd ever known.

**Bella**

As I had drifted off, I had rather hoped that the next time I woke, it would be quietly, and Edward would still be holding me as he slept on, perhaps with his mouth slightly open, his gentle breaths lifting his chest and his fingers twisted in my hair. What I got instead, though, was Alice.

The horrid buzzing of my phone against my hip – I had never taken it out of my jeans pocket last night – eventually dragged me into consciousness, and I pawed at my pants until I could drag the offending device out. After glancing at the caller ID through bleary eyes, I accepted the call and muttered, "S'posed to text only, not call, Ali. And it's fucking two in the morning."

"Shut up, this is important," Alice snapped, her voice sounding even more shrill than usual through the phone. "Listen, grab your computer. I forwarded you an email. You have to see this, Bella. Okay?"

"Fine," I grumbled, shoving myself off the bed and stumbling across the room to my desk, half my brain already planning to call Edward as soon as Alice finished saying whatever she needed to say. "But give me the background of what I'll be looking at while the computer turns on." I rubbed a hand over my face roughly, but then paused, dragging a finger over my bottom lip as I remembered Edward's fierce kisses. Heat flooded me.

Alice began her explanation, but her words were so rapid that just forcing myself to concentrate woke me up the rest of the way. "Okay, so I set up a tap on several of the critical email accounts and shit at the agency – don't ask me how I did it so you have deniability and also so I don't have to refuse to tell you and thus officially withhold information – and I've been sifting through the results for a while now. Only this morning did I get a hit that was even remotely interesting. You're going to love this, because I hate it, because it looks like you and Jasper have been right and I was wrong. Also, Irina's a traitor-slash-whore."

"Whoa there." I sat up straight in the desk chair, clutching my phone tighter to my ear. "That was abrupt."

"I know, and I'm sorry I wasn't willing to listen to you guys earlier. Is your computer on yet?" When I grunted a 'yes,' Alice continued, "Okay, check your private email account. I forwarded you a message that was sent to the Gummybear account."

"How in hell did you manage to hack the Gummybear account? Actually, don't tell me." The Gummybear account was sort of a last resort for the young undercover operatives, although no one was really sure as to the origin of the name. It was the email address that we were supposed to send messages to when our covers had been blown and we had exhausted and/or lost access to any and all other forms of communication with the agency. Any messages sent to the address were therefore recognized as extremely urgent.

Alice snorted over the phone. "Bella, just pull it up and then read it."

Accordingly, I opened my browser, accessed my email account, and clicked the unread message sent to me by the dummy account Alice had set up that filtered all the hacked emails. I took a deep breath and began to read.

_Oh, Central Intelligence Agency,_

_While we applaud your efforts to find and kill vampires, we must politely ask you to desist. There are those of us in this world who have a true calling to eradicate the vampire scourge from this earth, and we do not appreciate your interfering with our sacred mission. We were summoned by God to complete this task, and we have been honoring this summons for a thousand years. You are interfering with a holy mission, and we simply cannot have that, not only for the sake of our work, but also for that of your immortal souls – however much of them is left. Stop your meddling._

The message was unsigned. I read it twice before I spoke again. "I'm guessing you've already tried to backtrace it."

"I did," Alice huffed. "And it's pinging all over the goddamn globe. Somebody knows their shit – I mean, this isn't stuff that you can teach yourself. It's done in the same way that we were taught in that joint class with the NSA and NRO two summers ago, you remember? Like, I can recognize that that's what's being done, but I cannot backtrace it. She's got to be running her own botnet."

"Okay…" I dragged the word out, getting up and pacing over to my bedroom window, which was still being lashed with raindrops. "Alice, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's Christina."

"It was sent to the goddamn Gummybear address, Bells!" Alice snapped. "It was sent using skills that remarkably few people outside of the US intelligence community know!" There was a pause as Alice tried to get her near-hyperventilation under control. "Anyway. Bella, you're better at behavioral analysis than I am. Any thoughts on the actual wording of the message itself?"

Turning away from the window, I resumed my seat and read the email a third time. "It's very formal diction – formal to the point of camp. I never had a conversation with Irina, so I don't know her speech or writing patterns. But this… this smacks of trying too hard. If I had to guess, which I basically do, I'd say that whoever wrote this is trying to impress someone reading over her shoulder as she typed this out."

Alice sighed into the phone. "Okay, so can we assume that Irina – or _whoever wrote the email_ – is a new recruit to this… they don't even give themselves a name."

"Let's call them the Buffys for now," I suggested, and Alice laughed against her will.

"Fine, the Buffys, then. It looks like it's one of those old conspiracy fraternities… you know, claim to have existed forever, walk around trying to save the world from a mystery evil."

I opened a second tab on my browser and immediately engaged all the security locks on my Internet connection. "Let's see if we can't do some research and figure out what exactly this particular frat is."

"I'll keep trying to trace the email if you get on that," Alice bargained. "And you should start in Eastern Europe. That's where Irina disappeared."

"Ali–"

"I'm just saying. You need a place to start. That's as good as any."

"Fine," I sighed. "What we really need is access to the library at the Farm, but we'd have to put exactly what we're looking up in the request letter."

"Thought of that already." I could hear the keys of Alice's computer clicking in the background. "So now we're dealing with an agent who's left the agency not because she couldn't take it anymore but because she's gone rogue, and there's too much fucking bureaucratic red tape bullshit in the way of us finding out why."

Something occurred to me. "Alice, when did the Gummybear account receive that email?"

"Um… about six hours ago, why?"

I pulled my phone away from my ear for a moment to check for any text messages. There were none. "The agency hasn't officially informed us of it. There's a third party interfering with our investigation, and they're not letting us know about anything."

There was a pause, and then Alice hissed, "_Sa yo dyableman kouche salo._ They're going to get us killed."

"Looks like it, and I highly doubt cursing in a random type of Creole is going to help," I muttered, accessing the National Archives database through a back door. "Listen, you need to tell Jasper about this."

"Shit! Yeah, I do." I almost smiled at the flustered sound of Alice's voice. "Listen, I'll do that, and then we'll both keep looking up our stuff, and first person to find something interesting calls, okay?"

"Deal," I agreed, but paused before hanging up. "Alice, one last question."

"Yeah?"

"You think it was a coincidence that this email was sent just as we got back from an extended training on how to hunt vampires?"

Now it was Alice's turn to pause, and when she spoke again, she sounded resigned, more than pissed off. "No, I do not. So what do we think that means?"

"Aw, hell," I sighed. "There's a fucking mole. This on top of the suspected rogue agent."

"Shit fire and save matches." I could picture Alice squeezing her eyes shut and scrunching her nose. "Okay, I'm going to call Jasper. See you tomorrow, Bells."

"Yeah." They both hung up.

I kept searching for any trace of a known vampire-hunting circle as the sun crept up behind the rainclouds. I'd soon exhausted what little of the National Archives I could gain access to on such short notice, as well as the databases for the National Security Agency and Department of Justice. I decided I'd best avoid the CIA's own databases, because if anyone had any sense, they'd be watching to see who tried to access information related to vampires in any capacity. But I was so focused on my work that when my phone buzzed on my desk again, I jumped clear out of my seat. Scrambling back upright, I managed to snatch the phone and take the call just before it went to voicemail. "Hello?"

"Are you all right?" I couldn't help but smile at the concern in Edward's voice. "You sound a little flustered."

"Oh, um… yeah, you woke me up and I had to run for the phone." Glancing at the clock, I silently cursed when I saw that I had less than half an hour to get to school.

Edward sounded concerned when he next spoke. "Are you feeling all right? I was calling to ask if you wanted a ride to school, but maybe you should just stay home. You sound tired."

"No… no, come get me," I said quickly, darting around my room to collect a change of clothes. I was still wearing the outfit that I'd left Virginia in over twenty-four hours ago. "How long until you get here?"

"About five minutes," Edward responded cautiously. "Are you sure…?"

"Yeah… yes. I'll be ready. Sorry." I replied quickly before hanging up and tossing the phone back onto my bed and diving from my room and skittering across the hall to the bathroom.

After an incredibly quick shower, I was back in my room throwing my school things into my bag, cursing the fact that I was, once again, behind on my homework. I was just jamming my feet into shoes when my phone rang again, and I snapped it up. "Edward, I'm on my way out the door right now, I promise."

Checking to see that I had everything, I flew down the stairs, shouted my goodbyes to my dad, and yanked the door open. Edward was leaning against the side of his car, which was idling in his usual spot at the curb, his phone in his hand. He smiled when I ran down the front walk, catching me as I slid to a stop in front of him. "Sweetheart, we're not running that late."

"Still, though," I huffed. "I'm sorry." I quickly kissed his lips before sidestepping him and opening the passenger's side door of the car, sliding in. The radio was on, and neither of us felt it necessary to engage in chitchat. The silence was comfortable.

My phone buzzed, and I surreptitiously pulled it out to see a new text, glad that Edward was focusing on the road. It was from Jasper. _Alice just finished explaining to me. Crazy shit. What can I research?_

I thought for a moment before I replied. _I think it'd be best for you to help me out with finding old Buffys._

Jasper didn't reply after that, but I knew he'd gotten it. I slid my phone away into my pocket just as Edward found one of the few remaining parking spots. As soon as he parked and we got out, he took my hand again, and the two of us walked towards the school building.

Suddenly, my exhaustion hit me in a wave – not only the result of my sleep deprivation, but also of all the lies I was carrying around. I didn't want to do this anymore. I _really_ didn't.

The thought caused a sharp intake of breath, and Edward turned to me, his eyes widening in surprise when he saw that I was suddenly on the verge of tears. "Bella?" he asked urgently.

I made myself swallow the lump in my throat and smile up at Edward. "Hi. I'm fine."

Edward released my hand, only to bring his palm to my face, covering my cheek. "I don't believe you," he told me, his voice and his eyes so soft.

I shrugged one shoulder, leaning into his hand. "I just have some stuff to think about. But if I need you… again, I promise to come to you, okay?"

Ordinarily, Edward would have smiled and accepted that with a show of grace, but now, his jaw clenched and his eyes flashed with something that looked almost bitter. But he didn't say anything, just resumed his hold on my hand and started again for the school.

**Oh dear… who else thinks that Bella needs to stop holding out? Edward's patience is running thin, no matter how hard he's trying to accommodate her need to keep things secret. That can't go on forever, right?**

**Follow me on twitter Lily_Cullen. I don't exactly post spoilers, but if you ask me yes/no questions about where the story's going, I'll answer them honestly **

**Chapter 13 is done already, and at the latest I'll put it up a week from today. I hope everyone's having a good weekend.**

**For those of you reading "Everything's on Fire," I really appreciate all the kind words and support that story's getting. It's a little more personal for me, so it's a little more difficult to write, so I'm sorry the updates haven't been coming that quickly. Bear with me?**

**Love, Lily**


	13. Chapter 13

**Okay, I'm excited by this one. I hope you'll be able to see why **

**Chapter 13**

**Bella**

I was not a stupid girl. I saw it when Edward began to withdraw from me; I was well aware of the brooding silences into which he sometimes sank when he thought I wasn't paying attention. And, more than once in our history class, I saw him eyeing Alice or Jasper with a most speculative look on his face.

I wasn't sure how much he knew, but even so, I had to come up with a contingency plan. In the past, the plan would have been easy – deny everything, and if subject persists, terminate. This, of course, was no longer a viable option, given that the subject was the boy I loved. The vampire boy I loved.

Oh, I hadn't told him yet. I couldn't, not when there was sometimes a flash in his eye that told me, quite plainly, that I was making it extremely difficult for him to trust me. More than once, I committed myself to the idea of just breaking it off with him, telling him that we weren't working out and letting him get back to his life. But there were several reasons why this was not a real choice, the first of which being that I had to keep him close in case Alice and Jasper stumbled upon the truth and I needed to protect him. I was sure that Edward and his family could look after themselves, but if they were to be attacked by a Black Ops team, someone could get hurt, and I couldn't have that. God knew, there was enough sin on my head already; I wouldn't add innocent blood to it.

And I was happy with Edward, dammit. Maybe it was selfish to only hold onto him for my own sake, but I couldn't open my mouth to end my relationship with him; the words wouldn't come.

I hadn't told him that I loved him, and I didn't know if I ever would. It wasn't only that I would be opening myself up to even more emotional vulnerability if I were to acknowledge my feelings aloud, but there was that ever-present fact that my life was in danger. I could not declare my love for Edward because that would make him more invested in me, and if I died, he'd be devastated.

With that thought, I gripped his hand tighter as we left the school after our last classes about a month before the end of the semester. Would it cause Edward more pain if I were to break up with him than if I were to die? I'd have to ask Alice and Jasper, because by now, both had come to accept my relationship with Edward; Jasper had even stopped warning me of all the possible consequences.

Edward had glanced down at our hands when my fingers stiffened around his, and he looked at my face with raised eyebrows. He wasn't constantly distant, only when he was reminded of my secrecy.

"Are you all right, sweetheart?"

I snapped out of it and smiled up at him, because the sight of his face just _did_ that to me. "Yeah, I'm sorry. Lot on my mind right now." When Edward raised his eyebrows, urging me to continue, I added, "My dad's getting ready to go out of town on some sort of police chief conference thing."

Edward frowned at that. "He's leaving you here alone?"

"He asked me if I wanted to go with her," I reassured him. "But… you're here."

I shrugged, then giggled a little when Edward ducked his head, a proud smile on his face. "Don't flatter yourself _too_ much, there. I can't really miss class, either."

Moments after the words left my mouth, I flushed and looked down, hoping that his mind wouldn't go where mine had gone: the fact that I had recently missed class without providing him with any sort of explanation.

Edward let it pass. Instead, all he asked was, "Should we go by our coffee place before we go study?"

I nodded happily, then wondered, "Do you think that place has an actual name? We never use it."

"Poor place," smirked Edward sarcastically. "We've robbed it of all its identity. How will it ever survive? We are, after all, its only patrons and only form of advertising."

"You have way too much fun mocking me."

"Only when you make it easy," Edward teased, the hand on my hip slipping up so that his fingers were just barely touching the skin of my waist, caressing me gently. I shivered, but then recovered enough to grin smugly and step away.

"Never _that_ easy, Cullen," I sang, skipping away.

**Edward**

I stood stunned for a moment, my mouth opened as I watched her move, my mind blank. It would be folly to say that I had never thought of having Bella, but she'd certainly never brought it up before, and never as a joke. That _was_ what had just happened, was it not? On occasion, I had a hard time stopping where it was safe when I was kissing Bella, when she let me put my hands on her. And that was difficult enough without us actually _talking_ about it in casual conversation – much less after she'd told me that her house would be empty all week.

"Edward?" Bella glanced over her shoulder when she realized I wasn't following her, and her steps faltered. "You coming or what?"

"Sorry," I muttered, hastening to catch up with her, smiling when she ducked to look straight into my eyes.

"You're forgiven," she replied cheerfully, taking my hand again. "Can I drive?"

My brow furrowed. "It's my car."

"And it's a really nice car. Which I want to drive. Just to our coffee place that has no name. Please?"

I sighed, running a hand through my hair. I'd already made up my mind, but it was just so much fun to watch her eyes get big as she pleaded. "Bella… I don't know. Carlisle was really strict with us when he bought the car…"

"And I will be such a careful driver that it will _stun_ you. I promise. _Please_?"

I shook my head and turned away, forcing the grin back for a few more seconds. I might have lasted longer, had Bella not started dancing in place, causing me to burst out laughing. "Fine," I sighed, pulling out my keys and dropping them into her hand, loving how she squealed as she scooped them up. "But if we crash, I'll have your head."

"Duly noted," Bella said smartly, beeping open the trunk and flinging her bag and books in before darting around me to get to the driver's side door. Still chuckling, I stowed my own bag before climbing into the car as well – shotgun in my own vehicle for the first time in my life.

"So," Bella began, dragging out the word as we walked out to my car during lunchtime on the last day before final exams started, "when do I actually get to meet Esme?"

I sighed and did not look at her. "Whenever you're ready," I allowed, but Bella frowned.

"I've been ready. You're not. Every time I bring it up, you give me a vague answer," she retorted, and I had to acknowledge that this was true. Bella had mentioned a total of three times that she wanted to meet Esme: the first had been casual, just to me, on our way to her house to do homework; the second had occurred as we sat with Em at lunch; and the third had occurred when I had decided that I'd rather borrow one of Bella's textbooks than go home and get my own.

I sighed again. "Bella… it's not that simple. Esme gets very protective of all of us… because of our parents."

"She has to know that we're together, though," Bella countered. "I mean, you now officially spend more of your time with me than you do with your family."

"This is true, but she doesn't know how serious we are."

"And just how serious _are_ we?" Bella finally demanded, coming to a halt in the parking lot, oblivious to the rain pouring down around them. I stopped as well, but would not meet her eyes. "You come find me when I'm hurting, and you do anything to change it when I'm sad, and you say that you rely on me in ways you're not used to relying on anyone. But for all that, Edward, you don't want me to be around your family. Please just tell me why."

I shook my head. "Bella, it's not that I don't want Esme to know you. It's Rosalie, and… I just… I can't have that." Rosalie had not spoken to me any more about Bella, but she did glare at me whenever she saw me coming home from Bella's house.

Bella was still looking at me expectantly. "Rosalie what?"

_Rosalie wants you dead because you distract me from the fact that I have to keep everything about me a secret from everyone around me._ "Rosalie doesn't easily trust new people."

Shrugging, Bella said, "Okay, I can understand that, but I hope you'll give me the chance anyway. My dad loves you, after all."

While this was true, even if it had taken quite a bit of time on Charlie's part, I felt it was rather a low blow of Bella's to bring it up. I was always comfortable in Bella's house, whether or not her father was home, until Bella made a passive comment about how we _always_ hung out at her house.

I sighed. "Listen. It can't be today, because Esme doesn't get back from work until eight, and I have no idea when Carlisle is home. But I'll set it up so that you can come over for lunch some weekend. Does that sound okay?"

"Yes," Bella grinned, reaching up to slide her hand around the base of my neck and pull my face down to hers. She kissed me lightly, once, and then whispered against my lips, "It just means a lot to me that you be proud of me."

"I am," I promised, winding my arms around her waist. I buried my face into her hair and whispered the next part so softly that she could have imagined it. "I just couldn't bear it if anything were to happen to you."

I did speak to Esme and Carlisle about having Bella over, but warned them that I did not want Rosalie present. I would come up with an excuse for Bella, but I would be damned before I had them in the same room together. Esme was so giddy with the idea of Bella becoming even closer to our family that she, too, begged Carlisle to make Rosalie disappear. She even went so far as to propose lying to Rose and only having her find out that Bella had been in the house when she came home later and smelled her scent. Emmett pointed out the ridiculousness of this idea by reminding her that, if we lied, we had no way of ensuring that Rosalie stayed gone for all the time that we needed her gone.

And so, late that night, Carlisle sat me and Rosalie down together, his hands clasped tightly in front of him. "Rose," he started tentatively, "I want to meet Edward's girlfriend, and she wants to meet me as well."

Rosalie snorted, stood, and immediately strode for the door. "Rose, wait," Esme pleaded, while I closed my eyes and rolled my head against the back of my chair.

"Why?" Rosalie demanded, stopping but not turning around. "You dare claim me as family, Esme, while you're willing to let this harlot come in and destroy everything that we have built together."

"_What_ did you call her?" I demanded, my voice dangerous as I rose, eyes fixed on Rosalie's back.

Rosalie faced about and opened her mouth, her eyes hard, but Carlisle moved between us. "_Stop_," he begged, the word directed more at Rosalie. Esme was biting down on one of her fingernails, and Emmett reached up, gently tugging her hand away from her face.

"Rosalie, please, sit down." Carlisle put his hand on her forearm, silently sighing in relief when she did not pull away. She didn't move, but she did cut his eyes at him. "I just want to meet her. She means so much to Edward, and he trusts her, so can't we please–"

Rosalie cut him off. "Trusts her, does he?" She raised her eyebrows, turning to face me again. "Have you told her the truth about yourself, then?"

I was silent. Rosalie smiled triumphantly. "Of course you haven't, because you don't trust her. But very well, Carlisle, you can have it your way." Esme sighed and was about to thank her before Rosalie held up her hand. "Know this, though, Edward. If you choose to expose yourself, that's fine, but I will no longer have anything to do with you. You will need to choose between having that girl and having this family."

The ultimatum hung heavy in the air, and Emmett gasped. "Rose," he protested, his voice a whimper.

"That's not true," Esme told her daughter, all pleading gone now. She drew herself up to her full height and faced Rosalie. "I would welcome the girl, Rose."

Both Rosalie and I turned to her, shocked. "You would?" demanded Rosalie. "You know what that would mean, Esme."

"If Edward wants to give his heart to this girl, then we would assume that she has done something to deserve it. I can't see Edward loving the kind of girl who would shout what we are from the mountaintops." Carlisle moved to stand behind Esme.

"You will not be there," I dictated. "I don't want you in this house while she is here, Rosalie. I don't trust you not to kill her."

Rosalie snorted. "Smart boy. Fine." She faced Carlisle again, expressionless. "I'll leave now, then – spend a few days hunting."

"You'll be back on Sunday?"

She shrugged. "Maybe. If I am still welcome, after all. This family seems to be no longer what it was."

"Baby, don't do that," Emmett began, but she waved him off, heading up the stairs to pack herself a bag.

I watched her go – the first member of my family to be driven away.

**~*oOo*~**

**Bella**

I panted softly against Edward's soft bronze hair, weaving my fingers through it as he skimmed his tongue along my throat. His fingers roamed along my waist under my shirt, pressing into my flesh, the sensation anything but painful. I ground my hips forward into his from where I sat in his lap, sighing in satisfaction as I felt him hard between my legs.

He groaned into my neck, and I couldn't help but let out a breathy laugh. He lifted his head back up, and I only briefly saw the fire in his eyes before he crashed his lips to mine. His tongue dragged along my lip and I opened my mouth, granting him entrance that he quickly claimed, tasting me. I whimpered, slipping one hand into the collar of his shirt so that I could caress his collarbone.

As Edward continued to devour me – I didn't know where this newfound confidence was from, but I relished it – one of his hands braced against the small of my back while the other slid up the inside of my blouse, under my bra, and my breath caught when he twisted his fingers around my nipple, raising it to a point. He chuckled low at my reaction. I still blushed whenever he touched my breasts, but I loved how gentle he was with me.

Now, in the haze of pleasure I was drowning in, only one thought was managing to break free. _Do not lose your virginity in the back seat of your boyfriend's car at lunchtime._ Because, against the advice of the agency, I had never had sex.

When agents, particularly young female operatives, were compromised on operations and taken hostage by our subjects, rape was nearly always an outcome. It was for this reason that the CIA not only provided its female agents with prescription birth control, but also encouraged its operatives to lose their virginity as young as possible, so at least it would be gone in a consensual setting, and not through an act of violence. Physical intimacy had terrified me for so long, because all I had heard from the age of eleven was that sex was a weapon, and it was part of my job to circumnavigate that.

Edward made me forget all this, though. He made me feel safe.

I knew that he wasn't a virgin, although he hadn't told me details, and I hadn't asked. It didn't matter. He looked at me like I was the only person who had ever mattered, and sometimes I wondered if it was possible for him to love me too.

He looked up again, smiling slightly, the gold in his eyes seeming to have melted. Again, I felt the flush creep up into my face, but just as I was about to lean in to kiss him, I heard the telltale buzzing of my phone from my bag. I froze, shutting my eyes. Edward drew me in to kiss me and make me forget about the phone, but I avoided his eyes as I slid off his lap and reached for her bag.

"Really?" Edward asked, raising an eyebrow as he tried to get his breathing under control.

I mouthed an apology at him as I dug the phone out and answered it. "Hi."

"Bells," came Alice's voice from the phone, "are you alone?"

I paused, half-glancing at Edward, before mumbling, "Give me a second." I dragged my raincoat from the front seat of the car and single-handedly shrugged it on, slipping out of the car before Edward had time to protest. I stepped out into the pouring rain, keeping my phone tucked into the hood of the coat as I hunched my shoulders against the downpour. "I'm good now."

"Okay, so I just got this email from the agency, and I wasn't sure if you'd seen it yet…"

"I haven't checked my email lately." I looked back at the car, seeing Edward sitting in the back seat, his shirt still unbuttoned as he stared up at the roof of the car, his face stone.

Alice humphed, but didn't comment as she explained, "Okay, so the agency got some more chatter about vampires, and apparently there's this cell in Russia or some shit that, like, sees it as their God-given mission to find and kill vampires. It's just interesting because that's where Irina disappeared."

"That _is_ odd," I agreed slowly, my focus sharpening. "How do they kill them?"

"Didn't get that. Are you standing in the rain right now? You sound weird."

I hesitated. "I actually am, yeah. In the parking lot. Edward's in my car."

"Oh, shit," Alice half-laughed, half-groaned. "Did I interrupt something?"

"Kind of," I muttered. "I don't know what to tell him when shit like this happens, Alice."

There was a rush of air over the line as Alice sighed. "Listen," she told me, "there's really no advice that anyone can give you here except to break up with him, and I'm not willing to say that anymore. He just has to trust you."

"I appreciate that," I snapped, trying not to see Alice's words as condescension. Without giving her the chance to reply, I hung up and pocketed the phone, turning back to the car.

When Edward saw me coming, he got out of the back seat and moved for the driver's door of the car. "Edward?" I asked uncertainly, my steps faltering as I approached him.

"We need to talk," he sighed, staring up at me, his eyes cold again.

"What about class? We have history–" Edward fixed me with a steely glare, and I cut myself off.

I swallowed hard, then nodded, silently moving around to the other side of the car and sliding into the passenger's seat. My heart was pounding wildly in my chest, but my head was clear. I knew that if he left me now, I would certainly be better off in terms of the agency, and while something in me twisted at how horrible it was to even think that, I could not deny that it would be best for everyone, especially Edward.

The tension was almost a third entity in the car as we drove away from school through the near-empty streets. I was only vaguely aware that we were heading to my house. I glanced over at Edward, who refused to look at me. His jaw was taut, his eyes fixed on the road ahead, his fingers gripping the steering wheel as if he was resisting the urge to twist it to the side, pull over to the curb, and demand his answers there and then.

As it was, though, we reached my house without incident, and as expected, there was no activity in it. I let myself out of the car and started up the walk to the door, knowing without looking that Edward was right behind me. The rain was coming down harder now.

I unlocked the door and let us both in, dumping my school things there in the entryway and shrugging out of my coat. Edward followed suit, then led the way up the stairs to my room. I sighed and followed him, bracing myself for the rejection that was coming.

I came to a halt at the doorway and watched him pace around the room, a fist clenched at his mouth as he stared at the ground. I had never seen him looking more furious, and sadly I reflected that this would likely be my last memory of him. Eventually he halted, facing away from me, staring at a small framed photograph on my dresser. The picture was of the two of us, and I had taken it when he wasn't paying attention. We had been sitting on a bench in Cal Anderson Park on Capitol Hill, and he had leaned in to place a series of light, feathering kisses up and down my neck. I had pulled out my phone and held it above both of us, snapping the photo. While most of his face was hidden, the happiness revealed in his profile was breathtaking every time I saw it; my own joy in the image was unmistakable as well.

Edward gazed at the photo for several minutes before I couldn't stand the silence anymore. "Please say something," I begged, the words barely stretching between them.

"I don't know what to say," he replied after a moment without turning around. "We have moments like this, Bella," he motioned at the photo, "and then shit like today happens, when you'd rather stand out in the rain than let me overhear a conversation. What am I supposed to do with that?"

"It's not that I would rather–" I began, then stopped myself again, because Edward was finally looking at me. He stood on the other side of the room, arms folded tightly across his chest, his expression unreadable. "Edward, I _want _to tell you. I just _can't_."

"And what I take away from that," he enunciated, "is that your word to someone else is more important than our relationship. Do we even _have_ a relationship, Bella? Because I'm pretty sure that, in relationships, people fucking talk to each other once in a while."

I bit my tongue at the retort I wouldn't let myself utter – how dare he accuse me of secrecy when he wasn't telling her what I was certain I already knew? – because he was right, at least partially. _His_ secret wasn't damaging what we had; it wasn't making me unable to trust him.

And after all, I was only remaining silent to keep him safe. I had to keep myself aware of that.

Suddenly, I was _angry_. What was Edward doing, throwing this back in my face? I had warned him, and he had ignored me. He had made his choice, and now he was using it against me. "I knew this wouldn't work," I muttered to myself, turning away from him.

Edward looked as if someone had stabbed him in the chest, and I almost regretted my words. "You expected us to fail?" he asked me quietly, taking a step towards me and then stopping, unable to bear to come any closer.

I whirled back to face him, fire in my chest "I warned you!" I shouted. "I warned you that I would be keeping things from you, that I wouldn't tell you stuff, that you couldn't ask questions! I told you all that going in, Edward! And you chose not to listen! Don't you remember?"

He was silent.

_"I really like you. That sounds ridiculously cheesy, but it's the best I can do right now. I don't want to lose this, but... I can't... tell you everything."_

And he had accepted that. The memory stilled him.

"So what is it, Edward?" I demanded, pacing. "Can you trust me or can't you?"

"Do you realize what a fucking double standard that is?" he hurled back at me. "You demand my trust and then you don't tell me shit. What I take away from that is that you don't trust _me_."

To my disgust, I felt tears began to pool behind my eyes. "I'm _sorry_, Edward, I really am. I would tell you if I could. I just…"

"I know. You can't." He snorted, shaking his head. "Why do you even fucking bother, Bella?"

"Because I–" I began without thinking, then cut myself off. If I said it…

Edward saw my hesitation. "Because why?" he asked, his gaze intent on my face. "I have a right to know why you're doing this to me."

My breath caught in my throat as his eyes bore into mine. A small part of my mind wondered why I even needed to say it; it must have been written all over my face.

The whisper floated up before I could stop it, my voice broken. "Because I love you."

His breath caught in his throat as he watched my tears spill over.

"It's so selfish, isn't it?" I went on, absently brushing at my cheek. "To keep you with me. It would be better for both of us if we weren't together. But I can't… I find myself unable to walk away from you." Wrapping my arms around my torso, I wandered over to the window and stared out at the rain, speaking almost to myself now, now letting myself cry unchecked. "What am I doing? It used to be so easy to separate my emotions, and now…." I sighed.

I wasn't aware of Edward moving forward, but then he was right behind me, he was reaching out, he was wrapping his arms around me. I startled a little at his initial touch, but then melted back into him as he held me. My eyes drifted shut as he rested his lips against my collarbone. "Edward?"

"You love me?" he mumbled into my skin, and I could feel the shivers rolling over his body.

I nodded once, my wet cheek brushing against his, and waited.

He exhaled shakily, his breath rushing over my skin, and I trembled. For the second time that afternoon, I begged him, "Please say something." My timid hands found his where they were clasped together over my belly button.

Gently, he turned me around so that I was facing him, his hands stroking my hips, my arms, my shoulders. The gold of his eyes had darkened to black – he looked wrecked. My hands rested limply on his chest as I searched his face.

Abruptly, his lips were on mine, hungry, his breathing ragged and desperate. I parted my lips for him, and his tongue dove in, tasting me, as he spread his fingers and pressed his palms into my back, trying to hold as much of me as he could. My own hands slid around his chest as I held him to me, my lips moving with his, trying to be gentle in the face of his apparent anguish.

His mouth separated from mine, but he was still so close that we were sharing the same breath. His hand was still trembling as he lifted it to wipe away my tears. "Bella… I can't…"

I shook my head, my own hands cupping his face. "It's okay. You're still here. That's enough."

He rested his forehead against mine. "The rest can wait?" he asked, still struggling to control his breathing. I nodded, smiling softly when his hands flexed on my back. "Bella… I need you."

"You mean…" I looked up, frowning slightly as my eyes found his.

Nodding slowly, he lifted one hand to cup my neck, stroking his thumb along my throat. My eyes fluttered shut as he spoke again. "I can't… say it… yet. But I want to…." He swallowed hard and started over. "You're everything… and you deserve to know. I need to show you."

I hesitated, opening my eyes, but then whispered, "Yes."

He sighed slowly, his hands moving together to the zipper of my raincoat, slowly sliding it down and peeling it off my shoulders. His lips ghosted along my jawline as my shaking fingers pushed his coat off his shoulders as well. "Edward… you know I've never done this before."

He immediately took a step back. "Sweetheart, we don't have to–"

"That's not what I meant," I cut him off, taking his wrist and pulling him back towards me. "Just… will it hurt?"

Sighing, he reached up and brushed my hair back off my shoulders. "I'll try not to hurt you. I promise."

I exhaled, unable to find fear, because I trusted him. "Okay."

We went slowly, and he said that he had never known me to be more shy. When I lay bare before him on my bed, feeling his eyes on me, I blushed deeply and averted my eyes from his face, but he placed his fingertips on my chin and turned me back to him. "Don't," he murmured. "Don't hide from me. You're perfect."

His weight on me was comforting, and I was fascinated by the muscles in his back as my fingertips traced them. When he entered me carefully, my hands tensed and I accidentally dug my fingernails into his skin, but he didn't mind. He stilled, kissing my cheek until I was ready for his movements. The burn eventually faded, and it pleased me that I seemed to be making him happy. His lips slid along my collarbone, my throat, as I lightly gripped his hair. Finally he tensed and then shuddered, coming to rest with his head over my heart.

After a moment in which we both calmed our breathing, he asked me, "Are you all right?"

I nodded, my face brushing against his coppery hair. "Are you happy?"

He propped himself up on his elbow so that he could look down on me, ghosting a finger along my cheekbone, enjoying the way my skin flushed at the contact. "Yes." He was still caressing my face as he murmured, "So beautiful."

Flushing again, I burrowed myself under the blankets as I curled into Edward's side. "Stay?" I mumbled.

"Always." He lay back down, pulling me to him.

****~*oOo*~****

**Edward**

It was several hours later, and I was watching the shadows that the moonlight through the heavy clouds cast on the bare skin of Bella's back – the way the imprints of raindrops on her window pane made lazy, random patterns on her flesh. Her hair was swept to the side, cascading over the edge of the ridiculously small mattress. The sound of the rain on the roof and walls of the little house was peaceful, a steady, rhythmic percussion that served as background music to her even breaths and heartbeats.

Of course it wasn't perfect. Although her arms were wrapped around my neck, I made sure that her head rested on my shoulder and not on my chest – I couldn't risk her hearing the absence of my heartbeat. And even as my fingertips traced the imaginary lines between the shadows on her back, I could feel my own skin hardening. I had to stay warm, I knew this… God, I was running such a risk right now. If she were to wake, she would know that something inexplicable was wrong with me. I would have to be gone by the time she woke, and that thought cut me.

But for now, I was happy. I rested my head back on her pillows, her scent swirling up to cover me, and smiled.

It was almost one-thirty in the morning when her cell phone rang. I reached for it, intending to silence it before it could disturb her, but to my shock her eyes snapped open and she quickly reached across from me, plucking the device from her bedside table and whispering, "Hello?"

My brows knitted together in confusion as the caller said, "_I'm sorry – I must have dialed the wrong number._"

Bella stiffened and sat up next to me, drawing the sheet over her chest and, it seemed to me, avoiding my eyes. "That's quite all right." And then she waited, not hanging up.

"_Perhaps you could give me the correct one._"

"One-one-six-seven-nine-five-four-three-dash-C-three," Bella recited. Then she sighed and tilted her face away from me so that her curtain of dark hair fell between us.

"_Good._" The male voice at the other end was suddenly businesslike. "_Jacklyn Doyle, Delta Airlines flight number four-twenty, tracking number X-five-three-two-nineteen. Departure time oh-two hundred hours._"

Bella glanced at the numbers on her digital alarm clock and muttered, "Shit," jumping out of the bed and pulling her clothing on. "Go on."

"_Nonstop flight. Further details restricted until arrival. Any questions?_"

"No sir."

Without another word from either of them, the call was disconnected.

"Bella?" I got up too and pulled on my pants. "What's going on?"

"I have to leave." She darted into her closet and pulled out a small gray satchel, apparently already packed. She reached into this bag and pulled out another, smaller one, rifling through it until she found what she wanted: a little black wallet, plain, nothing like the purple one I'd seen previously. She tucked that wallet into the larger bag.

Shifting so that I was standing between her and the doorway, I demanded, "Why? You're getting on a plane? And who's Jacklyn Doyle?"

A moment, a pause. Bella stood frozen, one strap of the bag in her hand and the other reaching for her phone. But then she took a deep breath and moved to her schoolbag, reaching in and quickly withdrawing her keys. "Nobody. Now please, don't ask me any more questions. I just have to leave." Before I could stop her, she had sidestepped me and was out of the room, into the hall, down the stairs.

"Bella!" I followed her, not knowing what else to do. Moving faster than I should have, I grabbed her wrist just as she opened the door to the attached garage and spun her around to face me. "Please. What's happening?"

With her free hand, she hit the button to raise the garage door. "I would tell you if I could," she whispered earnestly, her eyes finding mine in the dark for the first time since the call had come. "Please know that."

My throat tightened as I realized that I wouldn't be able to convince her otherwise. My voice was small as I asked the only question left: "When will you be back?"

Her eyes shut momentarily, and when they opened, I thought I saw tears in them. "I don't know." Almost before I had time to react, she stood up on her toes and wrapped her arms around my neck. Her clothed body pressed into my bare chest as she kissed me, fiercely, quickly, like she didn't dare let herself linger. "I love you."

And then she was gone, into the front seat of her car, backing out into the driveway, the rain ricocheting off the sleek black metal. I stood there, frozen, as her headlights cut a swath through the darkness, their beam stifled as the garage door rumbled shut again.

The rain on the roof was louder now.

Like a man in a daze, I turned and went slowly back up the stairs, looking neither left nor right until I was back in her room. The cozy, intimate space was now sterile, cheerless, almost like it was the embodiment of fear. I reached down for my shirt and slipped it on, draping my jacket over my arm and shouldering my own schoolbag. She'd left me with nothing. I stared down at her bed, and the sudden emptiness in me seemed to tighten as I realized again that her blood stained the sheets. I'd hurt her.

If I had turned over my other shoulder on my way to the door, I would not have seen the small bag lying on the floor where Bella had dropped it. I would learn later that she was far too careless to leave clues like that lying around – she had left it there on purpose. She wanted me to find it.

I picked it up, my fingers brushing her carpet before they closed around it. I moved into the faint light of the window, although I didn't need it, then peeled the bag open. Inside were four wallets, black, identical to the one she had tucked into her pocket before she'd dashed from the room. I set the bag down on her desk and opened the first one.

Inside was a hundred dollars in cash, varying bill denominations, two credit cards – American Express and Visa – and a Washington State driver's license for one Brittany Drury. Not breathing, I set it down and picked up a second one. The contents were the same, except that the license was for Tia Falton. The third one was for Jordan Sails, and the fourth, Caitlin Baxter. Something in my mind clicked, and I was sure that the fifth one – the one Bella had taken – held a license for Jacklyn Doyle.

Because the photo on all of them was the same.

It was a photo of Bella.

**~*oOo*~**

She was gone three days.

My phone was in my hand all day Saturday, and again on Sunday, because I was sure she would call as soon as she got on her plane home from wherever she was. I Googled Delta Airlines Flight 420, and I searched online for the tracking number, but I could find no record of either anywhere. At school on Monday, I stood by her locker, my gaze fixed on the end of the hall, at the school's entrance, while the rest of the insignificant humans swilled around me, until the late bell for first period rang. In history class, no one noticed she was gone – except Alice Brandon, who glanced at her desk, feigning disinterest. But I saw the worry tighten the corners of her mouth. She knew something, I was sure. I promised myself that if Bella was not back by Tuesday, I would pin the little girl up against the nearest wall and demand that she tell me what she knew.

But it didn't come to that. I resumed my post at Bella's locker that morning, and she came. She was almost late, her hair looked uncombed, and there were dark shadows under her eyes, but her head was up and her steps were fluid and quick as always. "Hi," she said brightly to me, as if there was nothing at all the matter.

"Where were you?" My voice was low when I asked, but she missed or chose to ignore the weight as she stepped around me to twiddle the dial on her locker. "Why didn't you call?"

She shrugged, digging around in her locker. "Busy, I guess. What did I miss yesterday?"

I parried her question with one of my own. "Does your father know you were gone?"

She glanced at me impatiently. "Of course he does. I'm a minor, remember? I couldn't go without telling him." She slammed her locker shut and turned away from me, heading in the direction of her first class.

The sight of her walking away enraged me, and when I caught up to her, I dragged her, harder than I should have done, into the nearest empty classroom. "What aren't you telling me?" I growled, my eyes boring into hers.

Bella met my stare without flinching. "What aren't _you_ telling _me_?" she countered. "I'm not the only one keeping a secret. You think I don't see how you dodge questions? You think I don't know that there's a reason you and your siblings never want anything to do with the other students?" She wrenched her arm out of my grasp, strode through the rows of empty desks to the window, and folded her arms, staring out. The silence rose around us, roaring. I did not breathe, and I don't think she did either.

When she spoke again, her voice was lower than I'd ever heard it. "Listen. I have things in my life that I cannot tell you about. You, I am sure, have things in your life that you can't tell me. I'm not going to speculate on who has more riding on their secret." She paused, and I began to walk towards her. I stopped within reach, but did not touch her. She went on, "I want to tell you the truth about everything. But I just can't." She turned around, and her eyes found mine. "I want to be with you. I meant it when I said I loved you."

Without my volition, my hand lifted, and my fingertips brushed along her cheek. "I want to be with you," I murmured. "More than I've ever wanted anything."

She swallowed hard, but nodded. "Okay. So, having accepted that, you need to make a decision. Can you live with knowing that I'm keeping something from you? Is this–" she motioned at the air between us "–worth that to you?"

I traced the contours of her face: the delicate ridge of her nose, her full lips, her high, regal cheekbones, the soft line of her jaw. My touch ghosted down until I was cupping her neck in my palm, feeling her pulse throb.

"Can I ask one question?"

She bit her lip. "You can. I don't know that I'll answer it."

I nodded. "Are you in any danger?" I realized the irony as the words passed my lips. Whatever risks she was taking, she would never be in more risk from anything than she was from me.

Bella smiled sadly. "Edward, don't ask the question if you don't want the answer."

I opened my mouth to protest, but she waved her hand to silence me, then ran the lapel of my sport coat between her fingers, lowering her eyes. "I should let you go, you know. I shouldn't let you love me."

My throat tightened. Had I not had this selfsame thought?

She whispered, "You could lose me. And I know how it feels to lose people you love." She breathed deeply, let it out slowly. "But it's not up to me how you choose to live your life. So. What's your choice?"

I didn't have a choice. From the moment I'd met her, I'd had no choice. My arms invited themselves around her waist, and I pulled her close. I wanted to absorb her, to keep her inside my chest, safe from whatever danger she was in. The words were soft in her hair. "Yes, I want to be with you. That's all I know for certain anymore. And you are a braver person than I, Bella."

Because she warned me, didn't she? A courtesy I hadn't extended to her.

The nasal warning bell rang, and we broke apart, knowing that a class would soon enter this room. I brushed her hair back from her face, tucked it behind her ear. "Come on," she smiled. "Let's go be normal."

****~*oOo*~****

**Can I just say that I've been looking forward to this chapter forever? The last few pages have been written since the very beginning, because for me, it exemplifies everything about their relationship.**

**Let me know what you think? Either in the reviews or I'm on twitter Lily_Cullen**


	14. Chapter 14

**Oh my goodness, it's been a long time. But I'm glad you're still with me! (At least I assume you are, if you're still reading this A/N)**

**To recap: Bella, Alice, and Jasper are young CIA operatives, and Edward, Emmett, Rosalie, and Carlisle are vampires. The CIA has been investigating the existence of vampires, believing them to be a threat to national security. Bella worked out that Edward was a vampire, but kept this knowledge to herself. Meanwhile, Alice has begun an unauthorized campaign to hack into the agency to learn everything she can about what the agents and operatives aren't being told by the administration. She, Bella, and Jasper have their suspicions about another operative named Irina who supposedly died on an op in Siberia. Her body was not recovered.**

**In the previous chapter, Edward had finally had enough of Bella keeping secrets from him and demanded that she tell him the truth. She said she couldn't, and he accepted that after she said she loved him. They made love. Later that night, the agency called Bella away for an op.**

~oOo~

**Bella**

I was sitting quietly beside Edward in our shared history class the day after my return from my latest op, completely zoned out. My chin was propped up in my palm, my eyes drifting towards the rain that kept spattering the window as Berlenbach gave an overly energetic lecture about the antebellum period or something. All I wanted to do was go home, make hot chocolate, curl up with Edward, and watch mindless movies.

Christmas was coming, I mused. I hadn't done any shopping. What would I get for Edward? Could I get away with buying presents for Jasper and Alice? I felt closer to them than I ever had to my cohort in Phoenix, but I wasn't sure what that meant.

A slip of folded white paper landed on my desk, and I jumped. From the corner of my eye, I caught Edward smirking at me. Subtly flipping him off under the desk, I unfolded the note.

_You seem spacey today. Anything on your mind?_

I shrugged back at him, then decided he deserved a more concrete answer. _Just a lot going on. I'm behind on homework that I don't want to do._

I slipped it to him and waited a moment for him to return it. _I'll study with you this afternoon. We can keep each other motivated?_

_Sure, but we can't go to my house._

Edward frowned at that. _Why not?_

_Because my parents still aren't back. We won't get anything done._

He grinned as he read my note, and I was sure that he instantly came up with a list of sexual innuendoes that would be wildly inappropriate here. Instead, he gave me another answer, one that he must have expected I'd like. _That's all right. We can go to my house. Esme won't mind._

I frowned at the note. Inclining my head towards him so as to not attract Berlenbach's attention, I hissed, "Are you sure?"

Edward opened his mouth once, then shut it. We had talked about this countless times, it felt like, but never before had he initiated the idea of me meeting his parents, nor had he ever spoken of it so casually. But I guessed my sudden disappearance over the weekend had changed something in his attitude – it felt like he was trying to draw me in and keep me closer. I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

"All right, then," I whispered, smiling slowly, "it's a date."

Edward chuckled. "No, it's not. But speaking of dates, we should do that again soon, actually."

Wondering where my sudden shyness was coming from, I was about to reply that that sounded lovely, but before I could, Berlenbach's voice snapped across the classroom.

"Miss Swan, Mr. Cullen, is there something that the rest of us need to be aware of?"

my head snapped back around to the front of the room, and I thought I heard Edward stifle a laugh at the sudden movement. "No, sir, we're sorry," I apologized for both of us, elbowing his hip under the table.

Berlenbach raised one eyebrow, and said coolly, "Then, if there's no private conversation going on here, would you please tell me about the circumstances under which Rutherford Hayes became President of this country? You've been paying such close attention that you must know, even though I doubt that you did the assigned reading."

I smiled thinly. "Tilden was far ahead of Hayes in the popular vote in the 1876 election, and he was also up by nineteen electoral votes with twenty left to count. Those last twenty were hotly disputed, and then a bunch of backroom deals happened in which the Democrats would concede the race in exchange for the Republicans withdrawing troops from the South and ending Reconstruction. The end."

Folding his arms across his chest, Berlenbach leaned back against his desk. "The end, Miss Swan?"

Shrugging, I replied, trying not to overdo it, "Well, then Jim Crow happened and stuff. Hayes lasted one term and failed at making the North and South get along. And he tried really hard to end the spoils system, but Chester A. Arthur and his friends stopped that from happening. But he did stop the corruption in the US Postal Service."

By the end of my recitation, Edward had put a fist to his mouth to stop the laughter from escaping him at the look at Berlenbach's face. For my part, I kept my expression remarkably straight as I waited.

The teacher blinked. "Miss Swan, the spoils system and the reform of the postal system weren't part of last night's reading. That was for tonight."

I shrugged. "Oops. Guess I did a little more than the assigned reading."

A few low catcalls of "ooh," and some nervous giggles rippled throughout the room.

"Clearly." Berlenbach nodded once and returned to the lecture. I didn't dare let myself look at Edward, certain that his face would cause me to burst into laughter, but I did catch Jasper's eye. He obviously wanted to be mad at me for drawing attention to myself, but even he couldn't fight the smirk on his face. Quickly, he winked at me before facing front again.

"So," Edward began once we were out of Berlenbach's class and headed to our next classes. "What exactly are we doing after school, then? Did we resolve anything?"

"I don't think so," I laughed, "but we actually do need to get homework done this time. So…"

"Come over." Edward stopped walking, apparently not caring that we were in the middle of the hallway and that he was obstructing the flow of traffic. "Please, Bella. I want you to meet everyone. Esme's been bugging me about bringing you home with me. Carlisle was working a graveyard shift, so he'll be there too. I'll text you directions."

Even though the request was unexpected, I found myself unable to disappoint such a face. His liquid gold eyes bored into mine, and I sighed. "Yes."

He exhaled, then grinned. "Really?"

"Really." I reached up and lay my palm in the center of his chest, pretending that I didn't notice the way he tensed. "But I'll need to go home first. I have to check on the house, okay?"

"Fair enough." Still smiling, Edward put his hand on the back of my head and drew me forwards so that he could kiss my forehead. "I'll see you later. I'll text you directions."

I then – in a very un-me-like gesture – blew him a kiss as I began to slowly walk away from him. "Yeah, you will. I love you."

His breath caught in his throat. I knew that he was still unable to say it back, for whatever reason, but the smile he gave me lit his whole face, and I decided that right then, it was enough.

Finally turning away from him, I pulled out my phone as I headed towards my next class. I meant to text Jasper, and then my dad, to let them know what I'd be doing that afternoon, but I saw that my phone had died.

A vague sense of unease settled over me. Rule number one in the agency was to never, ever, ever be unreachable. And having a phone shut off due to battery loss was clearly breaking that rule. I crossed my fingers and whispered a silent prayer that no emergencies would happen in the next hour and a half so that I could get my phone back on charge.

When my last class broke an hour later, I was one of the first people out of the room, and then out of the school building. I _had_ to get my phone charger, and if I was going to do a thorough walk-through of my house before heading to Edward's, I'd have to be quick, especially since I didn't know how to get to his house. As I entered the parking lot, I scanned the area for Jasper and Alice, hoping to signal them that I'd call them later, but didn't see either one. In fact… on further inspection, I couldn't see either one of their cars, either.

Now, I was officially concerned. The odds of both of them having been pulled by Langley for the same op – especially after I'd gone on one the previous weekend – were somewhere between slim and none. That would attract far too much attention, in the opinion of the agency. I remembered the ongoing investigations into the agency's database regarding vampires that Alice had been making, and wondered if she'd been found out.

_Shit_. None of us could afford to have that happen.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Edward trying to get my attention, and I forced a smile on my face as I turned to him. I responded to his wave, even laughing to myself when he winked at her while Emmett waved excitedly at his side. Rosalie ignored me, but I smiled more easily at all of them as their three doors shut and Edward put the car in gear. I watched as he pulled out of his parking spot and joined the crawl of traffic out of the lot before shaking myself to awareness and getting into my own car.

I drove home faster than I should have done, especially considering the rain that had just started to fall, but I didn't care. The feeling of unease was still sitting with me as I wound my way through the damp, bustling streets so typical of Seattle at this time of day. More than once, I thought I saw the same car in my rearview mirror, but the license plate was different every time. Even so, I took a divergent route home, arriving there five minutes later than usual.

I guided my car into the garage and closed the automatic door before leaving my vehicle, then checked all the corners and tight spaces before entering the house. Quickly I checked and cleared the living room, kitchen, and downstairs bathroom before slowly heading upstairs. The first bedroom I checked was my own, pausing to connect my phone to its charger, knowing that it would have to get to at least ten percent battery before I could turn it on. That done, I cleared my bathroom, Charlie's bathroom and bedroom, the closets, and Charlie's office.

Trying to dislodge the knot that had settled in my stomach, I decided to use the house phone to call my parents. My dad was on a break during a meeting, so I only got to speak to him for a few minutes, but it was long enough to reassure myself that he was indeed okay – tired and bored from the conference, maybe, but okay. "I love you, Daddy," I told him when he had to get back to his meeting.

His reply was gruff, as was characteristic of him, but I still knew how much he meant it. "love you too, pumpkin."

My conversation with my mom was much more satisfying, in that special way that only conversations with moms can be. Renee was enjoying her stay with her sister in Tempe, but she told me she missed me. She was dismayed to find that I had been called to an op on Friday night.

"In the middle of the night?" she asked sadly. "Did you at least get enough sleep on the plane?"

"Yeah, Mom, of course," I assured her, deciding not to mention what I'd been doing with Edward mere hours before I'd gotten the call. "The op itself wasn't that big of a deal anyway."

I could tell that Renee wanted to ask, but knew she wouldn't. Instead, she asked, "And how's Edward?"

"He's…" I paused. "Good, Mom. He's really good. _We're_ really good."

"I'm so glad, sweetie. You deserve to be happy, and he's such a nice boy." Renee's smile was clear in her voice through the phone. "Is he with you now?"

"No, actually, but I'm about to go over to his house to meet his parents and do some studying." Nervously, I glanced over to my cell phone. Seven percent charge. _Dammit_. I decided to turn on my computer and check to see if I had any emails – I could at least do that. I raised the lid of my laptop and pressed the power button as my mother launched into a story about something that her sister's nine-month-old granddaughter had done involving a teething ring or something. I made the appropriate listening noises as my computer turned on and I quickly opened my email.

My breath caught in my throat.

Over the last hour, Alice had sent me seven emails – the first four containing copies of in-house memos coded highly classified by the agency, meaning that only those with security clearance black (the highest clearance level there was) were supposed to see them. The next three were demands – increasingly panicky in succession – for me to contact either her or Jasper stat. quickly, I clicked the first email and pulled up the attached memo.

_TO ALL DIRECTORS AND HIGH-CLEARANCE PERSONNEL:_

_We have received confirmation as to the existence, base, and mission statement of the Очистители крови (The Blood Purifiers). This cell, which is inclined to refer to itself as a coven, as if of witches, is based near to Lake Baikal outside the town of Babushkin in Siberia. Their mission is to find a way to "cure" vampires – that is, to return them to human. From what we can ascertain, if they fail in their attempts to cure vampires (and we can find only two documented tales of temporary success out of hundreds of attempts since 1900), they then execute the vampires by fire._

_The situation is progressing, and POTUS has not yet been read in._

_For ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set ye free. _

I thought, for one moment, that I would actually vomit. _Execute the vampires by fire…_

I was no longer pretending to listen to my mother, who continued to chatter on, unaware. With fumbling fingers, I opened Alice's next email.

_TO ALL DIRECTORS AND HGH-CLEARANCE PERSONNEL_

_Further to the clearance black memo you received approximately four days ago, additional information has been discovered regarding the leader of the coven Очистители крови. She is one Tanya Wiktoryevna, age forty-three years, three months (approx). At the age of four, she lost her father (himself a member of Очистители крови) to a vampire attack and promptly was drafted by her mother into the organization. She became de facto leader of the coven when leader Pytor Vasiliv in 2006, and was confirmed by the coven a year later. We have deemed her threat level orange to national security, given that the organization under her has a pattern of targeting American citizens and ex-patriots for experimentation of her cures. Our next step is to plant a deep-cover agent with the organization; we anticipate this to take between fifteen to eighteen months before results are shown._

_The situation is progressing, and POTUS has not yet been read in._

_For ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set ye free. _

"Bella?" asked Renee, finally noticing my silence. "Sweetie, are you still there?"

"Yeah, Mom, of course," I responded distractedly, opening Alice's third email as I spoke. "What did Uncle Bill do then?"

_TO ALL DIRECTORS AND HIGH-CLEARANCE PERSONNEL_

_Three days after his deployment, Agent Jack Hudson was terminated by Очистители крови in his efforts to infiltrate the coven. Any further efforts to infiltrate will be postponed until further notice._

_The situation is progressing, and POTUS has been read in._

_For ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set ye free. _

I exhaled sharply. _Terminated._ Shit.

Suddenly, there was a squeal of brakes on the street below my house, and I darted to the window just in time to see Jasper's car skid to a stop at the curb next to my driveway. Hastily, I cut my mother off as I rushed towards my bedroom door and the staircase. "Mom, I'm sorry, but I have to go."

"Oh!" Renee sounded flustered. "Are you all right? Has something happened?"

I hesitated as I pounded down the stairs before answering. "I'm not sure. But I love you."

"I love you too," Renee replied, suddenly sounding choked up. "More than you know."

"I'll call you later if I can," I promised.

"Okay. Stay safe. Bye."

I hung up just as I flung open the house's front door. Alice was barreling towards me, her face twisted and her hair flying, before she threw herself into my arms and hugged me so tightly that I thought my ribs were going to crack. But before I could begin to reply to the hug, Alice released me and promptly slapped me upside the head.

"What the hell?" I sputtered.

"_We fucking thought you were dead,_" roared Jasper, who had run into the house right behind Alice, fury burning in his eyes. "What the fuck is wrong with your phone?"

"It died – I'm sorry – Alice, I've been reading your emails…"

"Did you see the last memo?" Alice choked out. When I shook my head, Alice continued, "They vacated Irina's death declaration and amended it to 'missing presumed rogue.' No explanation was given."

"Holy fuck," I breathed. "But why would that make you think I was dead?"

"There's more," Jasper told me grimly before glancing over his shoulder to where the front door was still wide open. He shut and locked it before saying, "We should sit down."

We moved into the living room and, after Jasper had drawn the blinds, Alice pulled out her phone and opened an encrypted file, explaining as she did so. "Ever since we were sure that whatever was going on was coming out of Siberia, I've been monitoring all electronic communication in the region – which isn't as hard as it sounds, given that the whole fucking area is basically third world. But I wrote an algorithm that looked for identical words, similar sentence structure – the works. But then I combined it with senders and recipients taking extra security measures, like encryption or diversion. I got about three different strains, and of course one of the ones I'd decided was irrelevant decided to become relevant today… just after I hacked into the agency's clearance level black communication archive."

"And?" I prompted her, feeling my gut twist.

Alice sighed and passed her phone to me, and I scrolled through the file pulled up on the screen. The ongoing email conversation, which was written in Russian and was between five different addresses, seemed to be about wedding planning – setting a date, picking types of flowers, deciding on the number of guests – but it didn't take a genius to figure out that it was a loose code for planning a strike on a particular person or group of persons. The last email was the only one that made reference to a venue – an emerald city. The date was today.

I looked up to see Jasper and Alice both staring at me. "Should… should I know what that means?" I asked, feeling vaguely foolish.

"Um," replied Alice blankly, seemingly shocked that I hadn't immediately understood the significance.

"She wasn't born here," Jasper muttered to Alice before turning back to me. "The Emerald City is a nickname for Seattle. It's a thing. It means they're coming here. Today."

"And then you didn't pick up your phone," Alice added, glaring at me, but I didn't care. It was like my ears were underwater.

_They're coming here. Today_.

I couldn't move. I could barely breathe.

_Irina had followed Edward and me outside the craft store so many weeks ago. And now the agency was no longer listing her as dead. They were presuming that she had gone rogue._

_Edward._

"Oh, God, no," I choked out as I leapt to my feet and flew up to my bedroom. I was vaguely aware of Jasper and Alice following me, their footsteps thundering up the stairs.

"Bella, what–" Alice began, but cut off when she saw me dive under the bed and retrieve my gun, which I tucked into my waistband at my back. Once it was secure, I seized my phone from its charger – it now had a fifteen percent battery – and turned it on before grabbing my car keys.

"Where are we going?" Jasper demanded, but wisely got out of my way as I barreled down the stairs and dashed out into the garage. My phone buzzed in my hands with a dozen missed text messages and calls – most of them from either Alice or Jasper, but the one that I was looking for was the one with the directions to Edward's house.

"Just follow me," I threw over my shoulder as I yanked my car door open and dropped into the driver's seat. I glimpsed Alice and Jasper exchanging a glance before ducking under the slowly opening garage door and jumping into Jasper's car. They seemed to have decided that it would be in everybody's best interest to just trust me – at least for now.

It took an enormous amount of self-control for me to maintain traffic laws as I sped through the streets, one eye on Edward's directions and the other on the road. Occasionally I checked my rearview mirror to make sure that Jasper was indeed following me, but he seemed to be keeping my tail easily enough. From the glimpses I got of his expression, though, I knew that he would be demanding an explanation from me sooner rather than later.

An explanation. Oh, God, why hadn't I given Edward one in the beginning?

I had reached the other side of town, and quickly turned off into Edward's neighborhood, Jasper still right behind me. My palms were sweating, making it a challenge to hold on to the steering wheel. "Left… right… right again," I muttered to myself in between glances at his directions. The houses were growing larger and farther apart; it reached a point where there were two minutes between passing a house and seeing its nearest neighbor. Some small part of my mind registered how important privacy would be – with regards to hunting and suchlike. I had never asked him about that…

_No. No fatalistic thinking. There isn't time._

Finally, I reached what Edward's text described as a "long, mysterious-looking driveway" on the right side of the road. Without slowing, I turned on to it, Jasper barely managing to keep up as I sped up the drive, around a few curves, before finally seeing the house. There were no lights, no activity in any of the windows, no one coming out to investigate the roar of the two cars' engines. I cut my motor and got out of the car as Jasper pulled in beside me.

Staring intently at me, not the house, he asked, "So where exactly are we?"

_Fuck it_. "Edward's house," I murmured. There was exactly zero point in being disingenuous anymore.

"Guys," said Alice sharply as we began to walk towards the house. "Front door."

"Shit," Jasper breathed as he and I saw what Alice had noticed. The door was slightly ajar, and even from here I could see that it had been kicked in. "Draw, ladies. I'm on point."

"Sir," Alice and I replied, recognizing that Jasper had taken charge of our entrance to the house. All three of us drew our weapons and removed the safety switches from them before forming a loose triangle, Jasper at the center front, Alice on his left, me on his right. Slowly, we crept up the front porch, and then Alice flattened herself along the wall beside the door, bracing one hand against it and waiting. When Jasper nodded to her, she sharply pushed it inward, and Jasper and I, guns raised, darted over the threshold and veered off to the sides.

Carefully, I crept through what looked like a formal living room, making sure to keep my back to the walls at all times. I swallowed hard when I saw a lamp shattered on the ground beside an overturned end table and armchair. But no one was in the room. "Clear," I called, trying to keep my voice steady.

"Clear," answered Jasper from the other end of the house. I turned to see him emerging from what looked like a kitchen, and he gestured that we would be following Alice up the stairs. As soundlessly as possible, we climbed the steps, entering a hallway just as Alice emerged from a bedroom to the right of the landing. "Clear," she mouthed, and the three of us made quick work of the rest of the bedrooms, the bathrooms, and the closets.

"No signs of a struggle in the kitchen," Jasper reported as he returned the safety to his gun and tucked it away. Alice did the same.

"There was in the living room." My voice was flat as I led the way back down. Alice and Jasper trailed after me in silence.

Alice hissed when she saw the lamp, table and chair, and Jasper knelt down beside a cluster of drops of blood a few feet away, tapping his fingers through it and sniffing it. "Fresh. But…" he frowned and looked up at me. "It doesn't smell like it should. It doesn't smell… human."

"We must have just missed them," I murmured, staring blankly around the room, realizing how cozy, how comfortable it looked. A half-finished game of chess sat on a coffee table, next to an open art history textbook. I vaguely remembered Edward saying that Esme was extremely interested in art history as a part of architecture.

"Bella, I'm tired of this bullshit," Jasper snapped, standing and glaring at me. "What he holy fuck is going on? We tell you that vampire hunters are coming to this city and we think they're after you, and your first thought is to come to your boyfriend's house, and when we get here it looks like they've been abducted?"

I shut my eyes and pressed my fingertips to my temples. It had caught up with me at last, then. I should have known that I couldn't run from all the secrets I was keeping forever. I heard Alice move to my side, and her tentative voice asked, "Bells? Is…is Edward a vampire?"

Forcing myself to breathe, I opened my eyes, ignoring Alice's anxious gaze and Jasper's accusing stare. Once more, I surveyed the room, imagining the struggle that must have happened… the door breaking down, hooded figures tackling Rosalie – austere Rosalie, so beautiful – Emmett trying to defend her before he was subdued too… Edward, my Edward, resisting and being injured…. I stared at the blood on the ground.

I had no choice. From the very beginning I'd had no choice. I was in love with Edward, and I had to save him. Whatever the cost.

"Jasper," I whispered. "Jasper, I need you and Alice to help me."

~oOo~

**Sorry for the cliffy, guys! Next chapter will be up sooner than this one was, I promise.**


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